The other week I ventured into my main town and was walking along the high street with her 'outdoors' and the tea pot lids. This high street is probably typical now of many towns and goes something like: Shop - Bar - Cafe - Shop - Bar - Bar etc etc. along it's length.
It was extremely difficult to get past all the smokers who spill out of the bars for a smoke and many times we were forced to step into the road to get along. The other thing that allerted me was how incredibly strong the smell of smoke was outside the buildings (as it was a fairly calm day) so in other words we were effectively inhailing all their smoke as we walked past!
Now I am not complaining at smokers here at all but it got me thinking that surely a non-smoker is far less likely to suffer passive smoking in a modern well ventilated bar than walking past hundreds of outdoor smokers exhailing at face-level on the pavements.
Apart from the odd place I can't really remember anywhere decent that was *full* of choking smoke before the ban - and in any case if you were that bothered then most places had smoking/non-smoking areas anyway.
The other thing is how much time and money is lost in businesses for all there workers nipping outside for a ciggy, it must be millions.
What do you all think?
Oh - I am also getting ready for the April Budget as it appears that strong lager is having it's revenue TREBLED in an effort to stop chavs drinking it and getting sick and smashing the place up. FFS I work really hard, and the one and only drink I enjoy (Stella) is getting hammered with Tax

[/mini rant]