are patio heaters ethically acceptable?

AronSearle · 23 Sep 2014

JBR said:
Ah! I've got it! Germany. Dictatorial. Dislikes the concept of freedom of choice.

Pubs always had the freedom to be smoke free, or have non smoking areas.

Outside of a few trendy town locations, none of them were.

We haven’t had freedom of choice in health and safety law in generations, if something is considered dangerous, it is banned or controlled.

Unless of course you want to go back to the days of missing limbs, and cry "FEEEDOOOM".

Ennui · 23 Sep 2014

Good point, AS.
To go a stage further with H&S. When some habits are incurring enormous additional expenditure, i.e. in National Health areas, etc, doesn't the state have a duty, as well as a right, to attempt to curtail the irresponsible behaviours.
There are other types of behaviour that are deemed irresponsible and no-one questions the state's intervention, e.g. drugs, dangerous/drunken driving, etc.
In fact, in general, one can assume that the state's intervention is applauded and supported.

JohnW2 · 23 Sep 2014

Ennui said:
To go a stage further with H&S. When some habits are incurring enormous additional expenditure, i.e. in National Health areas, etc, doesn't the state have a duty, as well as a right, to attempt to curtail the irresponsible behaviours.

That's conceptually sensible, and is fine if/when there is a general agreement about what constitutes "irresponsible behaviour" - but, as the original context of this thread illustrates, that is often not the case. For example, sports-related injuries constitute a massive burden on healthcare resources (and also have economic consequences due to lost work etc.), but there would presumably would not be general agreement that participating in sport represented an "irresponsible behaviour" that needed to be curtailed! It's not straightforward!

Kind Regards, John

Ennui · 23 Sep 2014

JohnW2 said:
That's conceptually sensible, and is fine if/when there is a general agreement about what constitutes "irresponsible behaviour" - but, as the original context of this thread illustrates, that is often not the case. For example, sports-related injuries constitute a massive burden on healthcare resources (and also have economic consequences due to lost work etc.), but there would presumably would not be general agreement that participating in sport represented an "irresponsible behaviour" that needed to be curtailed! It's not straightforward!

Kind Regards, John

Fair point, John.
I was referring to smoking rather than the issue of patio heaters. Smoking is generally accepted as dangerous to health, and only a very few dispute this, invariably smokers. There is no benefit, other than that to the suppliers, etc.

In the case of sport and associated injuries, however, I think it's widely accepted that sport in general is beneficial and therefore it's perhaps worth the risk of injury and associated costs in order to benefit otherwise.

So, as you say, it's not straightfoward, but some behaviour is more straightfoward than others.

JohnW2 · 23 Sep 2014

Ennui said:
Fair point, John. I was referring to smoking rather than the issue of patio heaters. ... So, as you say, it's not straightfoward, but some behaviour is more straightfoward than others.

Indeed. I realised that you were talking about smoking, but thought it appropriate to bring things back to sort-of on topic. As you say, there is 'general agreement' that smoking is bad and sport is good, so there is probably no real argument in those two cases.

However, there is undoubtedly far less general agreement about patio heaters - particularly the domestic ones which started all this. I would imagine that most patio heaters in domestic environments are used so little that the consequential 'irresponsible wastage of energy' probable fades into insignificance in comparison with the many other ways that many/most people 'waste energy'. For example, as I said early on, I think that anyone who often drives a one-occupant private vehicle should think very carefully before expressing passionate views against domestic patio heaters!

Kind Regards, John

JBR · 23 Sep 2014

AronSearle said:
JBR said:

Ah! I've got it! Germany. Dictatorial. Dislikes the concept of freedom of choice.

Click to expand...

Pubs always had the freedom to be smoke free, or have non smoking areas.

Outside of a few trendy town locations, none of them were.

I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point.

Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

JohnW2 · 23 Sep 2014

JBR said:
I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point. Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

If I understand the discussion correctly, I think it may be you that has missed the point. I thought it was being said that, prior to the legislation, pubs (or anywhere else) were free to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas - but, even when they could, very few actually did.

Kind Regards, John

AronSearle · 23 Sep 2014

JBR said:
AronSearle said:

JBR said:

Ah! I've got it! Germany. Dictatorial. Dislikes the concept of freedom of choice.

Click to expand...

Pubs always had the freedom to be smoke free, or have non smoking areas.

Outside of a few trendy town locations, none of them were.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point.

Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

They had that freedom, and I can count on 0 hands the number of pubs in my area that used that freedom.

I don't see how I am missing your point about freedumb.

You however are ignoring points made by myself, simply to repeat your flawed argument in another manner.

Stivino · 23 Sep 2014

JBR said:
AronSearle said:

JBR said:

Ah! I've got it! Germany. Dictatorial. Dislikes the concept of freedom of choice.

Click to expand...

Pubs always had the freedom to be smoke free, or have non smoking areas.

Outside of a few trendy town locations, none of them were.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point.

Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

No! It's illegal.

AronSearle · 23 Sep 2014

JBR may be on to something.

Why spend thousands of pounds on dust extraction in workshops, just make your workers agree to work in dusty workshops.

FREEDUMB!!

JBR · 23 Sep 2014

JohnW2 said:
JBR said:

I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point. Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

Click to expand...

If I understand the discussion correctly, I think it may be you that has missed the point. I thought it was being said that, prior to the legislation, pubs (or anywhere else) were free to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas - but, even when they could, very few actually did.

Kind Regards, John

If that is the case, I apologise.

JBR · 23 Sep 2014

AronSearle said:
JBR said:

AronSearle said:

JBR said:

Ah! I've got it! Germany. Dictatorial. Dislikes the concept of freedom of choice.

Click to expand...

Pubs always had the freedom to be smoke free, or have non smoking areas.

Outside of a few trendy town locations, none of them were.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid you seem to have missed my point.

Simple question: do pubs have the freedom to have indoor smoking areas?

Click to expand...

They had that freedom, and I can count on 0 hands the number of pubs in my area that used that freedom.

I don't see how I am missing your point about freedumb.

You however are ignoring points made by myself, simply to repeat your flawed argument in another manner.

I apologise if I misunderstood what you were saying.

Assuming I have got it right this time I agree that, in the days before the 'smoking ban', most pubs that I have visited declined to set aside non-smoking areas.

Of course, that was in the days when smoking was much more popular.

Today, it is much less so but there are still many people who (rightly or wrongly) choose to smoke, and I support their freedom of choice provided that it does not affect the well being of others.

I have said before that I am in favour of everybody being treated equally and I believe that smokers should have the right to go to a pub and smoke indoors. I can think of no practical reason why some pubs should not be at liberty to offer this service, as long as there are others who maintain a non-smoking environment.

JohnW2 · 23 Sep 2014

JBR said:
I have said before that I am in favour of everybody being treated equally and I believe that smokers should have the right to go to a pub and smoke indoors. I can think of no practical reason why some pubs should not be at liberty to offer this service, as long as there are others who maintain a non-smoking environment.

Particularly given that, for my sins, I speak as a smoker, I can't really disagree with that. However, as has been discussed, even when pubs were "at liberty to" offer separate smoking and non-smoking facilities, virtually none of them did - so I strongly suspect that they wouldn't do so now, even if the legislation were revised to allow it.

Kind Regards, John

jockscott · 23 Sep 2014

I remember a pub opening in Edinburgh many years before we had the smoking ban in public buildings. The owner claimed it was going to be the first non smoking pub in the country. Less than 4 months after opening, he relented and allowed smoking throughout, simply because the expected crowds of non smokers , never materialised. Had he let it remain as a non smoking pub (when all the others allowed it) he'd have gone out of business. We now have the case that approximately 30 odd pubs are closing every week. Most never to re-open as a hostelry. I know that the smoking ban isn't wholly to blame for this, but I'm sure it hasn't helped.

LastMagicBean · 23 Sep 2014

Many, many pubs took up the experiment of separate bars for smoking before the legislation came into play. It simply didn't work, so was therefore abandoned.

The reason it didn't work, was that the separation of the smokers from the non-smokers was severely detrimental to the landlords initial plans.

Rather than a happy division, they found that the complaining anti smokers were joining the smokers in the public bar (because that's where all the good people were) and the lounge bar was empty. Hypocrisy was rife.

It was a pointless exercise.

are patio heaters ethically acceptable?

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