31 May 2009

ACT Government to shaft the bars again

| johnboy
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Having let the bars and pubs of the ACT spend fortunes developing beer gardens cum smoking areas the ACT Government is now coming back for another swing.

The ABC reports that Katy Gallagher now wants to ban food, beverages, and staff from any area where smoking is occurring.

    “My number one issue is that you can’t have food served there, there will be no drinks served there, and that has other impacts in terms of the cleanliness of the venue,” she said.

    “I don’t think it’s something we can’t reach agreement on, but it will be through the detail of how that’s implemented.

    “We’re sort of in the finals stages now and it really is about how big can the area be, the fact that it has to be cordoned off from a whole range of all their other services, and there can be no staff there.

The current situation was entirely predictable when the last round of laws were brought in to anyone who had half a brain.

So does Katy Gallagher lack half a brain? Or is she conducting a mean spirited bait and switch?

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Why would the government enact a financial policy that would cost licencees, with the potential for more closures of venues as a result?

I’m a smoker and I’m just so sick of this half assed restrictions shit. Just ban it already since that’s the way it’s headed. May as well remove the concept of personal responsibility as well since that’s the way society seems to be headed.

Just a guess, but would the excise on tobacco being levied by the federal government, but the health expenditure being a state/territory responsibility mean that these annoucements are more likely to be motivated by financial policy than social policy?

Whinge, whinge, whinge.
That’s all I seem to hear from the die hard ani-smokers.
As a person that choses to smoke, I’m quite happy to bend over and take any restrictions that the government imposes on where I can smoke.
But I get really annoyed when people get up on their high horse about the issues and paint all smokers with the same brush.
It makes sense to me that employees shouldn’t be make to work in smokey areas, hence the laws banning smoking inside pubs and clubs.
If they ban smoking in beer gardens…Well I’ll just go for a walk.
As for the whingers, you’ll eventually get what you want, but don’t expect smoking to be banned in your lifetime.

Either make smoking illegal or stop this death of a 1000 cuts approach.

Of course, if smoking were illegal the government would fund someone to hand out cigarettes along with the syringes and condoms.

I’ll actually agree with something Katy has done for a change. Other people shouldn’t have to put up with people’s cigarette smoke while eating or drinking, or any other time really. Next step should be forcing smokers into a small room together with the doors closed.

Go Katy! Love your work (on this one)!!!

There’s nothing worse than sitting outside a pub/restaurant for dinner on a warm evening, and being smoked out by the cancer brigade with their death sticks. Issue a smoking ban for 50m from any shop, restaurant, child, petrol station, school, nimby, hospital… aw hell – just make it the whole of the ACT!

[yes, this is a little OTT, but so is dying and my value of air quality – hence I don’t live in Sydney]

[i]So does Katy Gallagher lack half a brain? Or is she conducting a mean spirited bait and switch?[/i]

I suspect she just wants to make lots of noise and be seen to be Doing Things and doesn’t know (or care) to let things be. Probably a few lobby groups (practising for the big time) are in her ear, dazzling her with attention.

Bit of a beat up that one.

You cannot smoke in the workplace. Smoking in a bar is smoking in a workplace. People should not have to breathe in other people’s smoke at work. What they are describing could be classed as an OH&S issue.

I smoke, and have no problem whatsoever wandering off somewhere else to do so. Smoking in work areas, including bars should not be permitted.

Food and drinks served means you have food and drinks serving staff. “OK Megan, You seem like a very likely candidate for the job. One final question, would you object to serving in all areas of the hotel including the smoking area?

I do not like people coughing and spluttering all their germs around me including non smokers.
who is the bigger health hazard

I still don’t get anti-anti-smoking antics:

If people love/want to smoke please exhale your smoke into a air-tight plastic bag and continue re-inhaling; enjoying every last soothing and relaxing poisonous particle of smoke so that the rest of the world can get along without you and be lifted of your impending burden on our health-care system when you start to whinge to your doctor that there’s a lump in your throat.

See the rest of the intelligent population prefer to not actively kill themselves and hence your second hand smoke is an unwanted health hazard.

Well, I wouldn’t object to banning smoking across the ACT, but even for me as a dyed-in-the-wool anti-smoker, I think we’re almost close enough.

Whenever I visit Sydney or Melbourne I’m shocked at the amount of cigarette smoke I have to walk through. Non-smokers in Canberra don’t have to deal with it anywhere near as much, and I think there’s a case for letting smokers kill themselves in their own slow way (as long as it doesn’t bother the rest of us too much).

So I would prefer to see Katy finding ways to enforce the smoking laws we already have, especially the one about not smoking near a door to a public building. That way most of us would never have to go near a smoker unless we want to (or unless we leave the comparative safety of Canberra).

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