Smoking ban and the demise of the pubs

Dear Editor, I do not expect many who read this site to agree with me. Perhaps not many are pub “regulars” – remember that term? But there is a wider and very sad perspective to the revival of the Cross Keys pub, if pub is what it will still be, according to my 50-odd years experience of them. I raise this because a national, political and social issue is involved.

The wider background I refer to is the relentless decline of the traditional local, all over the country, as mentioned in your report . The death blow, of course, was the total and totalitarian smoking ban, brought in by the Government in July 2007. Note that this was a departure from the Labour election manifesto which provided for pubs to decide whether or not to allow smoking: to provide for a degree of choice, indeed.

The result of that has been the collapse of social networks, of organic resorts of camaraderie among some people, often the old and frail. Look at some of the sites on the Net devoted to campaigning for an amendment of the smoking law and read of the sadness and bitterness, not only among pub regulars but among elderly and isolated folk, whose one day out was a visit to a Bingo hall, now closed – because of the ban.

The new licensee is quoted, as saying that one of the first things he did on arrival was to get rid of the pool table. One need not feel sad for any people who might still have enjoyed using it. They will have already decided to give up going to the pub, I suspect. Why pay serious money for a pint of beer and then go outside to drink it in the rain?

I have loved pubs all my life. And so often they have not been the friends of their regular clients. Apart from the present assault, nay the social cleansing of them from their premises which has occurred since 2007, the other attack was the atrocity of keg beer, 40 years ago. I campaigned against it when a pint of Double Diamond or Red Barrel acid attack was 2s 8d – if anyone visiting the Cross Keys would understand how much that was. It was a lot out of