Pub Smoking Ban Starts Today

[LtLOS]

Not sure if this is being discussed else where, but what do you think...good idea or not. My personal take, as a smoker for many years, but quit about 20 years ago now (from 3 packs a day), that it's a good idea.

So what's your take?

[Phil Conners]

Excellent idea, can't wait for it to be enforced!!!

[JohnBKKK]

I think its total rubbish - started in the US and than the UK, which has become such a nanny state that it makes 1984 read like a report on a free democratic country -

Pubs restaurants etc.. should be free to choose to allow smoking or not - any none smoker would have a FREE choice which establishment to visit or not - this way its a dictatorial decree taking away smokers freedom of choice - next someone will tell you what to eat like they are already trying in the UK and so on until you are allowed sex only once a week and to have children you will have to pass a test to obtain permission to prociate although the latter may not be such a bad idea considering some politiciians like the Bushes and Blairs and the current... ..... oh well

They are seriously limiting personal freedom no matter if you smoke or not you should not support such moves - personal freedom has been obtained with great struggle in the distant past and politicians in the US and Europe are reducing them day by day and now even in our residence of choice they start playing at the game...

[Florin]

I can't say I like this idea, though I am not a smoker...so people will start staying at home more to smoke, just like they also buy more booze at one time to get past the retarded hour limits for alcohol purchases.

I think making cigarettes very expensive is one of the best ways to get people to give up smoking, while still leaving room for choice...it can even be an incentive for people's ambition if they need a lot more money to purchase their daily pack of smokes

[britmaveric]

Not being enforced - just rang my mate and he is puffing away with the rest of them in a bar.

[lomatopo]

There are several large-ish restaurant/pubs which I like to go to to eat. However it can be very challenging to find a table where I am not overwhelmed by smoke (I quit ~ 20 years ago), so I simply do not go to these places anymore. I do make it a point to tell owners that I really think they serve excellent food but I cannot give them my business anymore due to the smoky environment. They probably look around and see more than half their customers smoking so are not moved by my position. I hope that it is enforced, but suspect it will not be as owners choose to leave it up to the customers to sort out. It seems like a lot of foreigners smoke here, certainly more than I am used to coming from the U.S.A., and they seem to be a lot more inconsiderate with their habut, perhaps owing to a perceived sense of expanded freedom and/or getting drunk?

[sgunn65]

I suspect that it will not be enforced for some time (if ever) as the Police will not start fining people until June according to the Bangkok Post. Then its a case of how much the difference between blind eyes and fines are.

As it happened when the ban came in in the UK in the summer it was really nice. The pubs just got smoke free and it seemed like it had always been that way. Smokers nipped outside although I left before the weather got bad so I dont know how it is now.