Madam, – Conor Pope’s article, “Who will mourn the loss of our pubs?” (Pricewatch, January 10th), merits a comment from the smoker’s perspective.
The caricature of the Irish pub, pre-smoking ban, was of a smoky place. This suggests that a lot of smokers were regulars in the pubs prior to 2004. One publican I spoke to in Cork at that time said more than 70 per cent of his customers were smokers. The ban had an immediate and permanent effect on that.
The VFI president Gerry Mellett confirmed that the ban was one of the adverse effects when he listed below-cost selling, stricter drink-driving regulations and the ban as the three biggest problems facing his industry. But, logic should have informed his members that all of that was coming down the track in our newly enriched, politically correct Tiger economy.
For nearly a third of the population who enjoy smoking, changes were forced on them. No longer welcome in the pub, they discovered their favourite tipple could be bought in a supermarket at a third of the price and enjoyed in the comfort of their own homes. Then, quietly smoking and having a drink in their chosen armchair, they could reflect that they ran no chance of getting cold and wet, or of encountering a garda in their own front room.
But, far from this being a naturally occurring social evolution, it is being forced on us by influential health zealots who appear to have a vision of a brave new world. It is difficult to understand what this vision includes, but I suspect that Mr Mellett and his members do not have a place in it. – Yours, etc,