A Cork publican was yesterday fined €4,000 and ordered to pay a further €575 in costs for two breaches of anti-smoking regulations after he failed to act on repeated warnings from the Health Service Executive that he was in breach of the legislation.
William Creagh, proprietor of The Joshua Tree on Blarney Street in Cork city, had been advised by HSE South staff on more than six occasions between December 2004 and January 2006 that a structure at the rear of the pub was in breach of anti-smoking legislation.
HSE South environmental health officer Kathleen Clifford told Cork District Court that Creagh had given several assurances to the HSE that the structure would be altered, but as recently as December 5th last no such work had been undertaken.
Ms Clifford told how she and her colleague, Maireád Coughlan, visited the bar at 1.10pm on March 20th, 2006, and inspected the structure at the end of the beer garden, where they found a man smoking and noticed a strong smell of tobacco smoke.
The structure, which consisted of three block walls, a plywood wall and a plywood roof covered with felt, had no access to the open air and Creagh, who had signposted it as a designated smoking area, was advised that it was in breach of the anti-smoking regulations.
Creagh undertook to alter the structure but when two other HSE environmental health officers carried out a surveillance operation on September 9th, 2006, they found it was unchanged and some 20 people were smoking there.
Creagh had again assured the HSE staff that work would be carried out to bring it into line with the workplace ban on smoking, but staff had again visited the premises on December 5th and found the structure had not been altered.
Creagh's solicitor, Cathal O'Sullivan, said his client had assured him that work would begin on altering the structure at the end of January or early February and the instigation of legal proceedings by the HSE had brought his client "to his senses".
He said that Creagh had "a strong and loyal customer base who might be described as 'rather strident'" and they had put pressure on his client and other bar owners to provide accommodation so that they might smoke.
Judge David Riordan said that while Creagh may have "a strident clientele", that didn't sway him one way or the other and he had no doubt that other publicans had also come under pressure from their smoking customers and hadn't ended up breaching the regulations.
He said it was clear the HSE South had done everything to advise Creagh that he was in breach of the regulations and his repeated failure to carry out the necessary alterations was bordering on "defiance".
However, Judge Riordan noted that Creagh had no previous convictions and that he had pleaded guilty to both offences.