Renewed calls have been made this week by the Royal Society for Public Health to set up a smoking exclusion zone so that punters are unable to light up outside restaurants and pubs. Could this be a boon for non-smokers and a deterrent for the addicted, or will it be the final nail in the coffin for landlords across Britain?

Smoking was made illegal inside restaurants, bars and nightclubs just eight years ago, and yet, as a consumer, it is already difficult to remember what it was like to walk into a restaurant and be asked: “Smoking or non smoking?”; or to exit the local boozer after a night out and discover your clothes were saturated with the smell of second hand smoke.

As a pub landlord the last eight years probably didn’t pass by quite so unnoticed. It’s no secret how many proprietors feel the smoking ban has affected their business and an exclusion zone that bans smokers from their gardens, terraces and rooftops cannot be welcome news.

Yes, it’s true that pubs are closing across the land and, yes, tax revenue from the sale of cigarettes in the this country (around £12bn annually) certainly helps to support our economy – but can it ever really be a bad idea to try to put people off a habit that is killing them? Some smokers may even welcome the ban, hoping that it will help them to quit as for many smoking and drinking are intrinsically linked.

The flip side of this argument is, of course, that it’s really none of the state’s business what we do with our money, or our bodies, and that pushing smokers to the periphery of society might serve no other purpose than angering them and ingraining the habit further. If people want to smoke and they are of legal age to do so why should they be stopped? We’re sure Ebeneezer Scrooge would approve. After all smoking is an activity that should help ‘decrease the surplus population’.

In urban areas an exclusion zone probably won’t have a drastic effect on trade – there are such throngs of drinkers in the City of London that a pub would probably have to declare plans to punch customers in the face to not be rammed come 5.30 pm (and even then some people might still go for ‘the experience’). But it is in the countryside that the issue becomes a bit stickier as residents may well decide to forgo a trip to their local and just stay at home where they won’t be hassled off down the road for lighting up. So once again the ban will make business more difficult for those who already find it hard to turn a profit.

Tell us your thoughts. Smoking exclusion zone – friend or foe of the catering industry?

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