Lack of public support for smokers may come back to haunt the pub industry
I wish I could feel more strongly about the impact the government's ever-changing coronavirus policy may have on Britain's pubs.
Don't get me wrong. I feel very sorry for the many publicans who have done their best to accommodate smokers in relative comfort with outdoor seating areas, heaters and so on, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of staff who may lose their jobs.
Nevertheless I can't forgive or forget the way the pub industry abandoned smokers both before and after the smoking ban.
'Save Our Pubs & Clubs', Forest's two-year campaign to amend the smoking ban to allow designated smoking rooms, did attract support from individual publicans – some of who attended an event at the House of Commons in 2011 when we lobbied MPs – but the trade bodies kept well away.
Nor were the breweries any more helpful.
When we launched the campaign in a Westminster pub in 2009, the owners (a well-known brewery) were firm that neither the pub nor the brewery should be identified in any press photos.
At least they allowed us to use the pub for the launch. Another brewery-owned pub flatly refused.
Prior to the smoking ban it was estimated that up to 47 per cent of regular pub goers were smokers. Where are they now?
Some quit smoking, others were content to smoke outside. But many more stopped going to the pub which, combined with other factors, led to the closure of thousands of pubs and bars.
Yet when the impact of the ban (on urban inner city pubs in particular) was clear to see the pub industry did nothing.
Today most people in the hospitality industry still look the other way, even when outdoor smoking areas are under threat.
The Government may have been persuaded not to ban smoking in the new licensed pavement areas introduced as part of the Business and Planning Bill in July, but no thanks to the various trade bodies.
Were they lobbying the government behind the scenes? I'd like to think so but I've seen no evidence of it.
As for all those 'save the pub' type campaigns, don't get me started. We did cajole one group to give us a statement opposing a ban on smoking in the new pavement areas but it was like pulling teeth.
We had the same problem when we hosted a webinar to discuss Boris's claim that it was a "patriotic duty" to support the pub. We invited several people from the pub industry to speak but none was willing or available to take part.
Of course I don't really want thousands of pubs to close – pubs, after all, are one of the few places smokers can still light up (albeit outside) with relative impunity. I also think Britain's pubs are an institution worth saving even if, in reality, many are pretty grotty.
But how many of Britain's seven million smokers (six million if you believe ASH) are going to continue to support Britain's pubs in the current emergency when they are treated by many publicans (and the industry as a whole) as an inconvenience to be tolerated rather than actively welcomed?