"The worst kind of non-smoker is the one when you're smoking and they just walk up to you [mocks a person faking a cough] I always say '****, you're lucky you don't smoke. That's a hell of a cough you got there. I smoke all day and don't cough like that. Maybe you were conceived with a weak sperm or somethin'. Maybe your dad was jackin' off and your mom sat on it at the last second.' Did I overreact? I don't think I did. I think that's kind of cruel, I'm smoking and you come up coughing at me, Jesus. Do you go up to crippled people and start dancing too, you ****? [starts dancing] Hey Mr. Wheelchair, what's your problem? C'mon iron-side, race ya. ****in' sadists. I mean the nerve!" - Bill Hicks - 1989
I,m also an ex heavy smoker and agree that it was quite easy to go a few hours without the need to spark up.
It is quite easy to go without fizzy drinks, beer and fatty processed food as well. But a lot can't seem to manage.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a high profile situation where someone who's taken that view and smacked a smoker in the face has claimed self defence yet. I don't mean at City, just somewhere in general. The ban was introduced to protect people from passive smoking. If someone is breaking the law by smoking then someone in that situation can easily say it's an illegal action that was putting them at risk. Reasonable force is allowed as self-defence, which is the minimum force required to end the action whilst preventing further injury to yourself, so providing they asked/told them to stop first a single punch should be perfectly legal. I'd never walk up to the smoker, or fake a cough, but I do have a psychological reaction to cigarette smoke that makes me cough and it makes it look like I'm doing that. I know it's psychological because even before the ban I could go into smokey pubs or round to family who smoked no problem, but if I was somewhere I wasn't expecting it the slightest little hint of the smell of them made me feel really ill. Oddly I've barely even got a sense of smell these days, but a couple of weekends ago I was working at an agricultural show that was open to the public. Round me there all the food vans with the smells connected to that, we had 6 generators running inflatables (2 of them running on diesel instead of petrol but we didn't know at the time and that's a different story), and 5 quad bikes all pumping out fumes and kicking up dust into the air. Even in that I suddenly smelt something burning that made me feel queasy and started looking round to see if any of our generators was playing up. It turned out it was a woman stood smoking about 20 foot away from me that just happened to be stood up wind from me, but that's how sensitive to it I am if I'm not expecting it.
I am an ex smoker (40 a day ) and I would never begrudge anyone having a smoke if they wished, I do not like the smell of it but would never say anything to a smoker. I firmly believe that the government screwed up by not insisting on safe smoking areas as opposed to blanket bans which has ruined many a small business, I have been smoke free for 10 years BTW so do not crave after the smell but believe that they too have rights.
So does walking across the road Having a known smoking area must be better than having the guy next to you light up and invade your space surely?
You can cross the road safely. The guy next to me can't light up, it's against the law. If people can't go a couple of hours without a tab, they seriously need to be considering a self acceptance of their addiction & seek help.
Tell that to the twonk that nearly ran me over on a crossing in Hull the other day. They all don't have our willpower do they?
Can you produce him? It doesn't take willpower to ask for help. I don't smoke, but those that do keep me in work so maybe I should be grateful.
Glad to find a thread on this subject. When I come over to England to watch matches I use the Eurostar and am amazed to see have differently anti smoking laws are interpreted in different countries. In German railway stations there are special smoking areas - in Belgium as long as it's an open station they are still smoking along the whole platform, and in England it's a blanket ban in all stations whether open or not. Similarly in football, at F.C. Cologne I can go behind the stand at half time for a smoke without problem - at Watford it's completely forbidden. As far as I see it European law states that non smokers should be protected from passive smoke. It also states that every employee is guaranteed a smoke free workplace. If a pub, football ground etc. can successfully separate smokers from non smokers then the government has no right to go beyond that with blanket bans etc. For me 'protection' then becomes an infringement of liberties. I quite simply have no wish to pay nearly 30 quid to be told firstly that I cannot stand up and make a noise, and then that I cannot go away somewhere where I am not disturbing anyone for a *** at half time. I appreciate non smokers rights and would never smoke whilst in their company, and I do this voluntarily without any laws - they need to respect my rights in return. As a parting quip, I am sick of the complainings of anti smokers on this theme whilst I, as a pedestrian and cyclist have to inhale their car fumes without any of them stopping to wonder if I have a problem with that !
An, the passive smoking red herring. There has never been a death certificate signed saying that a death was due to the effects of passive smoking. In fact the bloke who did the research which linked smoking to cancer stated that the effects of passive smoking were so infinitesimal that they didn't warrant worrying about. That is why there has never been a case in the USA where anyone has sued for the effect passive smoking has had on them. If it was provable then the courts there would be clogged with multimillion dollar lawsuits. I don't smoke but would rather be sat amongst a load of smokers than some of the priggish anti-smoking brigade. People are daily injured by people under the influence of alcohol. Should we ban alcohol? Obesity costs the NHS far more than smokers or drinkers, who pay more in taxes than the cost of treatment. Should we ban sugar laden fizzy drinks and the junk food responsible?
It being completely banned at Watford is not a legal matter, it's that Watford don't wish to provide a seperate external area for smokers as part of their business. They're perfectly entitled to do that, as are National Rail or any other business. As has been said other clubs do offer that area. Now, inside the stadium there's an interesting* legal discrepancy based on the design, or at least there is in Scotland, when it was introduced in England it may have been closed. Where a stadium is a bowl (like the KC) it is considered as one building and the whole place is smoke free by law. But, where a stadium is made up of 4 seperate stands (like Boothferry Park was) each stand is considered a seperate building. Smoking within the stands is obviously forbidden. The pitch and track around it however is an external area, and what teams were doing was allowing fans to go onto the track around it for cigarettes at half-time (until the SFA/SPL/SFL banned it as part of the Leagues' business policy). There's a % enclosed clause in the law up here that determines whether an area is classed as enclosed or not. Laughably my mum's workplace built a shelter for smokers a year before the ban came in, and when it did it was ruled that it was too enclosed and became a smoke free building. My mum works for a division of the NHS (not a patient facing part) so you would have thought they'd know what the rules were since they were one of the groups pushing for it. *in the loosest definition of the word.
When the RICOH opened, you could smoke in your seat but not in the concourse. Knackers...just realised that was before the ban, but I've written it now.
I've got a feeling they were one of the clubs that had an outside area when I went as well. It was one of those kind of clubs. It wasn't Leicester because the away end had nothingness behind it because it was on the outskirts of town and at the Walker's you can see civilisation (well Leicester), but it was someone who got a new ground fairly recently in that kind of area. The only thing that makes me think it wasn't is that I'm picturing a dark blue rather than Sky Blue. Anyway, who ever it was had specifically built the stadium to allow it because the food outlets were at ground level and they had serving points on the concourse and on the outside of the stadium so they could serve both groups which I thought was great planning by them to avoid losing food/drink sales as it meant you could get your drink and have it with your cig rather than choosing between them, and non-smokers could go with the smokers to talk and still get food.
