Eight things that have changed since the smoking ban ten years ago
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Andrew Russell, Durham University
It’s hard to think back to what English pubs and clubs were like before the law about smoke-free public places came into force ten years ago. Do you remember the dense fog, the smell of tobacco smoke on your clothes and hair after a night out, and the ashtrays loaded with cigarette butts?
The change in law has been described as:
The most important piece of public health legislation for a generation.
Of course, bringing it in had its challenges. Various options were proposed, including a plan to exempt private clubs and pubs that didn’t serve food – so-called “wet pubs” – but in some parts of England this would have excluded over half of all licensed premises.
Eventually, this proposal was quashed, mainly because of public health concerns. People with jobs forcing them to remain in smoky environments often had no choice but to do so – and why should they be subject to the health risks of secondhand smoke?
But apart from making public plac...
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