Smoking ban will encourage pub eating - survey

The smoking ban will encourage customers to eat more frequently in pubs, a new report published today claims.

The report, Smoke-free Policies: Market Research and Literature Review on Economic Effects on the Hospitality Sector, was commissioned by the Office of Tobacco Control (OTC) and consists of market research carried out by TNS/mrbi.

Independent economists Mr Joe Durkan and Mr Moore McDowell were also commissioned to examine existing literature on the issue.

The research, carried out last year, suggests the workplace ban, which begins next Monday, will not have an adverse effect on the hospitality sector as a whole and may even have a positive effect.

Twenty per cent of adults said they would visit a pub to eat more often, while 7 per cent said they would visit less often. Visiting pubs or bars to drink would be broadly unaffected by a smoking ban, with 12 per cent saying they would visit less often but 13 per cent saying they would visit more often.

More than one in three adults interviewed for the survey, 35 per cent, have left or chosen not to go into a pub or restaurant because of tobacco smoke. This increases to 42 per when non-smokers were questioned, although a significant proportion of smokers, 16 per cent, also said they left a smoky pub or restaurant on some occasion in the past.

Mr Durkan and Mr McDowell conclude that the "weight of evidence, even if studies are imperfect, is that bans have little or no effect in aggregate.

"Economic theory suggests that some hospitality industry customers will react positively and others negatively to the ban. The economic question is whether businesses in the industry will experience a net loss or a net gain from these changes. The net effect is what matters," the economists concluded.

The said the impact of a ban was unlikely to be uniform across all establishment types or all types of outlet.