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Smoking in Public Places
A Consultation on Reducing Exposure to Second Hand Smoke
Report of Regional and Area Events

REPORT FROM THE THIRD SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE REGIONAL CONSULTATION EVENT - INVERNESS RAMADA JARVIS HOTEL

Tuesday 10 August

This was the third in the series of public consultation events on smoking in public places. The event was well attended, with 93 attendees.

Debbie Wilkie, Director of the Scottish Civic Forum chaired the meeting and the meeting followed the tried and tested format of panel presentations with a questions and answer session followed by group discussion. Panel presentations were made by:

• Tom McCabe, MSP, Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care

• Paul Waterston, Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA)

• Maureen Moore, ASH Scotland

• Dr John Wrench, Director of Public Health, NHS Highland

In addition, Bruce Crabtree, GMB was a panel member.

Plenary

The Minister clarified that an outright ban was not proposed but a ban in enclosed public places.

The plenary became very heated with some publicans challenging the speaker from ASH Scotland, in particular.

A great deal of the discussion focused on the validity of the research quoted.

The validity of quoting mortality ages in Shettleston was questioned. Some participants felt that it was not appropriate because there are other social and economic factors that are relevant. The Minister pointed out, however that there is a high incidence of smoking there from which it was possible to draw conclusions about the impact.

Again most publicans thought a voluntary system should be used.

There were also supporters for extraction units. Those who had extractors felt these had been introduced at government behest and if government now says they don't work it should provide compensation.

The Minister said there were no plans for compensation.

After the panel session, all those in attendance were invited to join one of four discussion groups, which ran simultaneously. The group discussions were aimed at providing everyone with an opportunity to raise their views on the proposals and discuss these with others. Each group was facilitated by a Scottish Civic Forum facilitator who assured participants that all views would be fed into the Scottish Executive to inform the consultation. The group discussion sessions followed the sequence of questions posed in the consultation document and reports on each are attached.

Introduction

This paper reports the views, concerns and proposals of 18 participants at the Inverness meeting.

Whilst no introductions were made, and not everyone spoke, thereby making identification of all groups/organisations difficult, of the eighteen participants it is estimated they broke down as follows

Licensed Trade - 7
Health workers - 4
Individuals - 3
Unknown - 3
Scottish Executive - 1

As with previous meetings ground rules were agreed for conducting the meeting and a structure of questions to guide discussion

• Is further action required over and above current approach?

• If so, would you support legislation?

• If yes, should there be any exemptions?

• If not legislation what else/ more can be done?

• Other points/issues.

Unlike four previous group discussions facilitated, this one was very heated from the first moment, with the licensed trade "doing battle" with the health workers and one or two individuals.

The strength of feeling was such that enforcing the ground rules, and ensuring only one person spoke at a time, was near impossible at times.

On the first question of whether further action was required there was complete agreement, for very different reasons, however - non-licensed trade people wanting a ban of smoking and the licensed trade wanting legislation to provide for smoking and non-smoking areas within premises.

Comments, views and concerns are as follows

The majority of workplaces are already covered e.g. transport, hospitals, shopping centres, large organisations.

Only licensed trade left - "licensed trade the target".

Great concern expressed at the possible loss of jobs, estimated to be 75,000 in the licensed trade if a ban introduced UK wide.

Subsidies should be made available to publicans to experiment with different approaches of smoking prohibition.

Why are there no "no smoking" pubs operating currently? - one tried in Inverness 10 years ago lasted only 8 months.

The Scottish culture encourages the "individual" rather than the family, which militates against families going to licensed premises regardless of the smoking situation.

Concern at the lack of consistency across Scotland with regard to how licensing authorities operate and the differing standards and regulations imposed.

The Ireland situation was described as "very intimidating", with the smokers congregating outside the premises, thus putting off other users who are required to run the gauntlet.

What is required is an exit strategy whereby the end result will be a ban of smoking in public places. This, perhaps, can be achieved by a phased process, over a number of years.

Legislation supported by the licensed trade is to provide non-smoking areas where food is served and smoking and non-smoking bars within the same premises.

Whilst there was a view that most other work places were already covered there was a proposal that in hospitals there should be better provision for smokers to stop the congregating around entrances.

One view was that a brave decision was required - to ban smoking in public places and be done with it.

One other view was that the real challenge is to prohibit the sale of tobacco nation-wide.

At this point time was up and other questions of exemptions and other approaches were not explored - this was fundamentally due to the basic problem of two fairly entrenched sets of views held by the health professionals, supported by non-smokers, and the licensed trade, greatly concerned for livelihoods.

The breakout group attempted to follow the questions posed by the Executive, although the participants frequently merged/blurred the questions in their responses.

Having considered the health risks associated with passive smoking, do you think that further action needs to be taken to reduce people's exposure to second hand smoke?

The group gave the overall answer 'Yes', but the following comments were also made

• What proportion of smoking takes place in the home or in open spaces? Has the Executive looked at that?

• There is choice in one's own home (although not in the case of children). One does not have choice about what one breathes in a public place.

• Education about smoking is needed, leading to a cultural change.

• The licensed trade is already taking action and needs the opportunity to progress with what it is doing.

• Total prohibition of smoking everywhere (not just public places) would be fairer

The group was asked how many of them were from the licensed trade. Those who appeared to be from the licensed trade were vehement in refusing to answer the question. However, the response to the following question gives an indication.

Would you support a law that would make enclosed public places smoke free?

9 answered 'No'
7 answered 'Yes'

Specific comments made were:

• Is stopping people smoking where they want to a breach of human/civil rights?

• But if so, what about the rights of non-smokers in smoky situations?

• Pubs in New York are shutting and smokers are crossing the state line to smoke and drink

• A ban would have implications for the prosperity of the tourism industry

• Premises where you can smoke may attract some but they repel others

• In order to get a level playing field, could rural pubs be compensated in some way e.g. tax breaks for loss of business?

• To what level will the Government be prepared to compensate the licensed trade for a ban?

• Consider the lost business from the number of non-smokers who do not go into pubs

• If just 1 person smokes, an area is not smoke-free

• There should be a choice of licensed premises, smoking and non-smoking

• Would it be possible to have smoking and non-smoking pub licenses, with a set percentage for each type?

• The requirements of the Maxwell report are unrealistic

If a law was introduced, do you think there should be any exemptions to it?

• Just bars (those not serving food)

• The majority of people who work in bars smoke

• Rural pubs should be exempt because they are the hub of the community

• Rural pubs should not be exempt because non-smokers currently feel excluded from them

• The status quo should be non-smoking premises. There could then be secondary (additional) premises in which smoking is allowed.

• There should be a special room for smoking in pubs

• Let the market decide

If we decide not to introduce a law, what more could be done to encourage individual businesses to take voluntary action to become smoke-free or to provide more smoke-free provision?

• All businesses should have smoking and smoke-free areas.

• All businesses should have a no-smoking policy

• Cultural change can't happen overnight

• Many smokers want to stop. Smoke-free premises would help them.

• The government should give licensees help with e.g. the cost of extractors etc

What else could we do to reduce people's exposure to second hand smoke?

• To get a level playing field there should be a total ban on tobacco smoking everywhere (this view put forward by some who seemed to be from the licensed trade)

• Prohibition goes wrong (this view put forward by one who supported the proposed ban)

• There should be a trial period for a ban on smoking in public places

• All facilities should have completely segregated provision, smoking and non-smoking. Half-measures don't work.

• Has the Government considered the unemployment arising from a ban?

Any other views about smoking in public places?

Scepticism was expressed about figures being used on both sides of the argument, which were described as being absurd, contradictory and manipulated.

Criticisms were also made of the behaviour of those on both sides of the debate.

The consultation is loaded, not least because the summer is a bad time of year for the licensed trade to be able to attend.

Initial presentation from the panel were given. The presentation from the rep from ASH did not assist the preparation for the small group discussion which we had had to facilitate and in fact several members of the audience left after the presentations as they felt that the consultation was not worth participating in and was a sham - in one person's words.

Small group discussion -

Make up of the group was fairly equally split between those from within the licensed trade and those from health backgrounds with a couple of people not purporting to represent any viewpoint except their individual views.

In regard to the question of whether something further needed to be done in regard to the issue of 'passive smoking' -

Yes - restriction to use certain public places & injustice to those who work in public places where smoking is allowed

Yes - Publicans present suggested an extension or beefing up of the voluntary code - e.g. there should be standards to work to

At the beginning of the workshop everyone was asked to stand up and to place themselves along a continuum to show what kind of action should be taken on smoking in public places.

Conclusions

Action was wanted by all as the harmful effects of smoking is evidenced by research

Choice was a major issue for many. It is complicated by being thought of in different ways by those discussing choice.

There was support from almost all the workshop for bans in public places which people are felt to have no choice but to use, i.e. when shopping or travelling.

However there was less agreement when it comes to places people go for leisure, the pub being seen perhaps as almost unique because of its use as a place to socialise with others.

Legislation was not supported by all, but the majority wanted legislation ( 11 out of 18). To say yes to legislation without knowing what is would consist of, how it would be implemented, enforced and in what timescales, was a difficulty for some. The question was asked - what is better, bad legislation or good voluntary action?

Implementation was seen as an issue. And how would it be policed?

Dialogue was seen as need. More dissemination of facts and information was needed, more discussion of how to take action than afforded by the consultation process or perhaps as part of the consultation process.

Exemptions were seen as possibilities ie for residential care. The question of whether pubs could be exempt was raised, or licenses for pubs to be places to smoke in, as in California.

Discussion

Should there be further action or not?

It was agreed that there should be as the evidence of harm was there. However the nature of the action was not clear, so it was hard to know what was being signed up to.

There was general agreement that public places where all people need to go should have a ban in place. . People had a choice to go in or not to 'less public places' ie a pub, where there is smoking, others wanted a choice to go in anywhere and find no smoke.

However some wanted to know if there was any evidence of a voluntary ban working anywhere in the world.

The evidence on economic impact was disputed ie n Ireland and New York. Some felt it was too early to draw conclusions from the evidence to date and more evidence is needed.

The evidence on ventilation is hotly disputed. There was a call for research into ventilation in pubs.

Some publicans felt the Government had double standards, and was not willing to take other measures that could impact on the number of people smoking and those at risk of passive smoking.

Should there be a law on smoking in enclosed public places?

Some wanted a voluntary ban (7), but more wanted legislation of some kind (11). No-one felt no action should be taken.

There were questions as to what the nature of the law would be - immediate ban, or staged legislation. A key question is how would it be implemented and enforced. A good voluntary policy could be better that poor legislation that is hard to enforce.

If there is no law, what can be done to encourage local businesses to promote no smoking?

If there is a law should there be any exemptions?

There was no clear opinion. Residential care was mentioned as a possible exemption. Pubs could be exempt, or could apply for licenses to be a smoking area as in California.

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