Kartar.Net

The few, the brave, the 18%...

• Sunday July 8th, 2007

Last week Victoria and NSW banned smoking in enclosed licensed premises and in many enclosed outdoor area (with roofs covering more than 75% of the space). I will ‘fess up and say that I am a smoker. Have been for nearly 15 years now. I enjoy a drink and a cigarette. I am also a grown-up. I know about the health risks - I can read the label on my packs - I know the statistics. But I make a choice - I enjoy smoking - and I don’t want to give it up. Indeed, what I particularly loath is being told how to live my life by a collection of paternalistic wowsers. So how do I feel about the ban? Well I am not happy - feels like discrimination to me - but a quick check of the Equal Opportunities Act 1995 suggests I have no legal recourse to claim discrimination. So why can’t licensed premises have smoking and non-smoking sections? Worried about second-hand smoke? Then don’t sit in the smoking area. Worried about staff inhaling second-hand smoke? Well don’t locate bars in smoking sections. Only allow people to buy drinks in non-smoking sections. Instead the 18% of the population who are smokers and want to go to bars and pubs have to step outside to have a cigarette. We are patrons too - paying customers - just like anyone else. And don’t get me started on how wonderfully successful Prohibitions have been in the past. I will also confess I don’t mind smoking bans in lots of places - airports, airplanes, cabs, public transport - indeed any place where your freedom of association and movement is curtailed and you have to share an environment. Any place where your choice is restricted. But a pub? Well you have a choice there too - if you don’t like smoke - don’t go or if you want to go - stay in the non-smoking areas. No harm. No foul. But I hear you shout - “Unfair! Discrimination!” Yes - “pot meet kettle - also black”. Interestingly I hear word that ‘smoke-easys’ have sprung up in New York, Dublin, Boston and the United Kingdom either using after-hours ‘lock-ins’ or taking advantage of laws that allow the formation of ‘private clubs’. Wonder how long before that happens here? Of course, I also wonder how long before smoking is banned in all public places and we smokers will be forced to congregate in glass-walled ghettos a la modern airports. And before you all you anti-smokers get riled up - ask yourself where will it end? Ban fatty-foods? Alcohol? Caffeine? We’re all adults - let us make adult decisions free from paternalism and wowserism.