“One in six pubs will close by 2012 – hit by the credit crunch, the smoking ban and drinkers turning to cheap supermarket booze. Thirty-six are already shutting every week, with thousands of staff losing their jobs and many communities losing long-established focal points”, says The Publican.
As antismoking forces are facing the (underestimated) will of smokers not to submit and comply with prohibition, the excuse of the credit crunch is used more and more to underplay the devastating effects of the smoking ban. The implication is that the credit crunch – not the smoking ban that “everybody agrees with” – is at the base of the problem. In different words, if there were no credit crunch but only the smoking ban, pubs would be booming because the smoking ban is so “popular” – even amongst smokers!
That is false – like everything else antitobacco says.
The collapse of pubs pre-dates the credit crunch. Since the introduction of the smoking ban, a closure rate 7 times faster than in 2006 took place. While it is unquestionable that the credit crunch is a contributor to the present situation, it is certainly not the determining factor. This massive chain of shut-downs simply was not there before the smoking ban. Many pubs may have been “on the edge” , but they would still have been able to hold their own. It follows that it’s the smoking ban – not the credit crunch – that’s tipped the scales into real disaster. It also follows that smokers do not “agree” for the most part with the ban – to the point of staying home and drink (and smoke) there.
Case closed. “Public health” and its fraud-based law is responsible for yet another disaster.
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