Are Dingle Pubs/Restuarants breaking the 'no smoke' laws

Re: .

Does your employer and the Inland revenue know about this arrangement

No - it's a huge secret. The possibility that employees might be surfing from work has never entered the minds of the Revenue Commissioners (Inland don't operate over here). :rolleyes - What do you think, Catbert? Why don't you register so we can see how many posts you make? Or even how many you read?

PS Where are you posting from?
 
.

<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END-->

I don't intend to spend long here. I don't want to get addicted!

PS Where are you posting from?
Home, in my own time, from my own computer.
 
Prohibition on smoking in public places

Evenin' all!

I watched my brother and my father die of cancer. Father smoked cigarettes and a pipe the smell of which I loved, just as I loved to see him standing in the garden preparing his pipe, and the cloud of blue smoke hovering in the air. I was a smoker too (for 20 years!) and when I stopped, thought of giving my brother Brendan my vintage brass "Zippo" which he had always envied. However I decided NOT to; and at that stage too I stopped bringing Brendan and his wife "duty free" tobacco on my 4 - 5 trips to Dublin each year.

I am glad to have been able to beat the addiction. Many people try and fail. It brings premature death (Brendan died aged 45 leaving seven children.....his youngest, Paula, was 5 when her father died of cancer of the tongue).

So my first point is - this prohibition on smoking in public places is not empty rhetoric. It is not made up to persecute honest Joes who just want a bit of craic. It is legislation to protect the health and lives of the nations people. Incidentally it also aims to minimise the pressures on an overstretched health-service of those who are addicted. Smoking-related illnesses are myriad, including emphysemia (my aunt Mary recently died in agony of this terrible disease, outcome of a life-time of dedicated smoking) bronchitic illnesses, heart- and circulatory diseases as well as every form of cancer.

Laws are not arbitrary; they are the concretisation of ways of thinking and behaving which essentially are in the best interests of the majority and those interests should not - ever - be jeopardised by the less constructive impulses of the few "die-hards" (in this context the term finds its full resonance).
 
.

Marie - would it not make sense to completely ban smoking then? Many people (including children) are exposed to tobacco smoke in their homes.

Would you agree with an outright ban?
 
Re: .

Hi SF,

would it not make sense to completely ban smoking then?

Lets see how we get on with the smoke free workplaces legislation, the increased tax and duties, the advertising / endorcement restrictions.

Tobacco is a higly dangerours drug which needs to be highly regulated but not banned.

As an aside: why is it always the pro-smoke people who raise the spectre of a total ban ?

ajapale
 
Re: .

So, a little bit of tax evasion is okay then, is it?
Obviously the sarcasm intended with the :rolleyes went way over your head. I'll call it out more clearly in future.
Home, in my own time, from my own computer.
Congratulations. So when was the last time you carried a pen home from work? Or phoned the missus from work? Or accepted a phone call from your bank at work? Or absorbed some warmth from the heating at work & carried it home? This can get as silly as you want it to get.....
 
.

It's not being silly.

This isn't a trivial benefit. There are internet cafes that provide this service, at a cost. You are quite clearly benefiting, and judging by your prolific post count, I wouldn't regard it as being incidental.

Why isn't not paying duty 'silly'?, or tradesmen that do jobs for cash, and then don't declare the income 'silly'?
 
Re: .

I don't intend to spend long here. I don't want to get addicted!

Catbert, do you honestly believe that even one person here doesn't believe you to be a regular AAM user (and not just some blow in as you'd like to have us believe)?
Who knows how prolific you are??

Oh...and you're posting from home right? Y'know the sea looks very calm this morning. My secretary just brought me a pina colada, so I'm enjoying it in the 30 degree heat while I'm chatting here. I may go for a surf later on if it keeps like this, after my board meeting. It really is heavanly over here.
 
Re: .

Why isn't not paying duty 'silly'?, or tradesmen that do jobs for cash, and then don't declare the income 'silly'?
You know well that that is not what I said or implied. I'm going to ignore any future posts you make on this topic unless/until you can show that it is Revenue policy to levy BIK on personal use of work-based Internet access.
 
kevin myers

Trying to get back on topic….

“I would not vote for an individual or party whose aim would be to introduce such a law and I imagine that most others would not either. Secondly, I trust our democratic structures to ensure that such a ridiculous suggestion would not become law.”

When FF were last voted into power, I do not ever recall a smoking ban being included in their manifesto. In fact, much of what was in FF manifesto was never delivered. So don’t give me the crap that the people voted for this. And opinion polls count for nothing, look at the recent aussie election.


Kevin Myers wrote a very interesting piece in the Irish Times last Thursday (?). He stated that the Fibbers guys got a €3k fine. Fair enough. Sharon Shannon was 3 times over the legal alcohol limit, drove and smashed into a parked car (very luckily she didn’t kill anyone). She got a €800 fine, which suggests that the offence by the publican (for something which is perfectly legal all across the world) is 6 times worse than Sharon’s.

There were plenty more analogies, and many many more in Ireland.

The above punishments, no matter how you look at it, are out of line with the crimes.
 
kevin myers

> So don’t give me the crap that the people voted for this.

I never gave you said crap.

> The above punishments, no matter how you look at it, are out of line with the crimes.

At least you concede that flouting the workplace smoking ban constitutes a crime.
 
kevin myers

"I would not vote for an individual or party whose aim would be to introduce such a law"

But how would you know not to vote for them when you didn't know it was their intention to introduce such a law? I certainly wasn't aware that it was FF's stated (or even rumoured) intention to implement this smoking ban. I don't vote for that shower anyway


Yes, i agree, smoking in a bar is a crime now. However, it is the degree of seriousness that the courts and the GENERAL PUBLIC perceive this crime to be. It is a mixed up society who percieve smoking in a bar to be six times more of a crime than someone who drinks, drives and crashes into a parked car, while big time out of his/her head.
 
smoking ban

I'm struggling to understand how the appropriateness of a ban on smoking in public places (with the powerful implicit message of social deterrant it carries against use of an addictive, expensive and destructive substance) can be measured against (a) the relative truthfulness of opposing political parties or (b) partial anecdotal accounts of sentences handed down by the courts for abuse of alcohol?

It doesn't matter what ilk of government is in power; the effect of cigarette-smoking on the human system is not good.....baaaaaaaad for you!

If the Courts are not taking the abuse of alcohol seriously perhaps the public on whose behalf the judicial system acts need to express this through their representatives and through the media.

I applaud a law which stands up against the tobacco giants and opts for the huge loss in tax revenue which results from fewer people becoming addicted to a dangerous substance. It is ironic that those on behalf of whose health and safety this inspired law was made (and is being enforced......good show!) are so slow to recognise the benefits. I sincerely wish those three prematurely-deceased members of my family - all of whom tried many many times to kick the smoking habit - had had the moral and social support of this law (which incidentally looks like being copied very shortly here in the UK where the move is regarded with admiration).
 
australia

croikey, maybe we should be a bit thankful our legislation hasn't gone as far as this....

[broken link removed]

Cr Moore said the council welcomed the NSW Government's decision to ban smoking in pubs and clubs from 2007, and would look at extending the ban to the city's recreational areas.

Cr Moore will propose a working group, consisting of Sydney City Council, government agencies and other affected councils, to work out how to deal with the practical implications of the ban.

The group would examine issues such as how to stop smokers congregating on footpaths outside venues and leaving behind cigarette butts.

Cr Moore said the council would like to ban smokers congregating outside venues "but we have to work out how that's going to be done, and we would like to work with other local councils who are going to have the same sorts of issues".
 
to get back on topic…

Mollser

Trying to get back on topic….

The original question was .. are Pubs/Resturants in Dingle flouting the Smoking in the Workplace leglislation or was the article in the London Telegraph just the romantic musings of an absentee journo.

Knowing Dingle as I do I'm inclinde to think its the latter. If, however, its the former this does have implications for law enforcement and public health.

ajapale
 
Cute hoors in Kerry

Have the relevant authorities investigated this alleged illegal activity ? If so, what was the result ?

Have the rednecks on the Late Late Show from the end of last year got their way, and is the ban being openly flouted in Kerry ? If so, its time for a crack down, or it'll be like the drink drive laws in rural Ireland: never really enforced.
 
Are journos required to report law breaking?

Hi Tom,

You raise an interesting point.


The journo who made the allegation against the Dingle businesses was not prepared to make a complaint to the relevant authorities. This despite a request for him to do so.

This raises an interesting question: where a journo reports on law breaking, is he required to make a specific complaint to the relevant authorities?

ajapale
 
journos

Hi ajapale

I find your insinuation that journalists should be legally required to report suspected breaches of the law quite scary to be honest.

Do you not realise that this is East German Stasi territory?

There was a time in this country when informers were treated as social outcasts. Now we seem to have gone to the other extreme of everybody informing on everyone else.
 
The case of the lazy journo and the smoking gun

Hi maranello,

The anonomyous journo (there is no by-line in the article) published the allegation... But was not minded to report the alleged law breaking to the authorities even when requested.

To be explicit, and what Ive been insinuating all along, is that the journo didnt witness any law breaking and therefore could not have reported it to the relevant authorities.

We must assume the pub and fish resturant are innocent until proven guilty. Remember both the pub and resturant are recognisable from the descriptions.

ajapale
 
journo

ajapale,

Sorry I totally misread your train of thought. Apologies!