You’re free to smoke in Wandsworth
Posted on August 8, 2010The London Borough of Wandsworth got some flak recently (from the TPA amongst others) for the huge amount of money they spent on enforcing the smoking ban. Despite spending £207,000, there were no fines or prosecutions at all in Wandsworth in the three years since the ban came in.
How come they spent so much but achieved so little? Are they incompetent? Is the ban just unenforceable?
I’m told by a source in Wandsworth that the true reason is much more encouraging from a libertarian point of view - “the officers working on it are essentially under instructions not to catch anyone”.
If that is so, good on Wandsworth for resisting the absurdity of a blanket smoking ban, the encroachment of the nanny state on individual liberty and the obscene redefinition of private companies like pubs and restaurants as “public spaces”.
If the idea of a society that threatens people with prosecution for smoking wasn’t evidence enough, it is surely proof of the nation’s insanity that even when ignoring a ban the council apparently either felt the need or were compelled by central government to squander £200,000 on not doing anything.
It was an appalling waste of money, but spending it on actually bullying smokers and businesses would have been even worse. It is good to know that instead of Wandsworth being “Smoke Free”, it is apparently “Free to Smoke”.
Tags: ban, Council, Freedom, Local Government, Politics, Smoke Free, Smoking Ban, TaxPayers' Alliance, Wandsworth, Waste
Categories: Exclusives, Local Government, Opinion
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tim Montgomerie, Mark Wallace, Old Holborn, Tim Aker, schlumpf23 and others. schlumpf23 said: RT @wallaceme: Crash Bang Wallace: Free to Smoke – Wandsworth Council officers ordered not to enforce smoking ban http://bit.ly/aAdtJ0 [...]
05.08.2010 08:27
IIRC government funding for ‘smoke police’ ran out a while ago, so councils must find the money from their own budgets. There are probably very many other councils which have the same policy but keep it quiet.
05.08.2010 08:29
Now do we put in an FOI to find out what the instructions actually are, or do we leave them at it. If we find out there is a denying ordinance, the Antis will go bananas and this post will merely force Wandsworth to prosecute.
05.08.2010 08:33
For bad law I am a fan of “Reductio ad absurdum” – ensure that it is enforced 100% and everyone will see how stupid and wasteful it is.
The only qualifier is being sure that the demonstration of the absurdity cannot be denied… Many lefties would happily argue that 1 does indeed equal 0 if it leads to a bigger state and higher taxes.
05.08.2010 08:38
Hi Mark, I trust you are well.
This is the best news I have read about for a long time. I’m sure the nannies at ASH and the Department of Health will have choked on their lentils this morning. Expect some furious press releases denouncing Wandsworth that they are killing the children. Basically the smoking ban will fall apart immediately if councils do not enforce it of course.
05.08.2010 08:47
I don’t know. If you’ve got a bad law that is deliberately not enforced then those you are punishing would be those who choose to abide by the law. And actually, treating the law like that denigrates the public’s respect for the law in general. We need simpler, fewer, less ridiculous and less intrusive laws in future if that respect is ever to be built back up again.
05.08.2010 09:01
Not only is the smoking ban too costly to enforce, but is costing the hospitality industry huge amounts of money. If all councils were to ignore the smoking ban everybody would be better off.
05.08.2010 09:16
Its even more absurd that places where smoking has never been permitted like public libraries still have display no smoking signs under threat of prosecution
05.08.2010 09:39
Of course it is good news, and I hope that other councils follow suit, but what if Wandsworth were “forced” to take action by some poor girl named ASHley, who claims someone smoking in a pub just half a mile from her home, started off her asthma again?
05.08.2010 12:38
Thought that girl was called Lesley if it is the one you mean- you know snitched on a bus driver smoking in his cab a few hunded metres away. Anyway yes not sure what to do with this.
05.08.2010 15:25
No I didn’t mean Lesley Carlos. ASHley was my little joke, which obviously wasn’t as good as I thought (as no one seemed to have got it). It was supposed to be a play on the anti-smoking charity “ASH” get it?
06.08.2010 13:07
A non-smoking friend of mine (who was an Actuary and understood all the statistics) used to file “Passive Smoking” under “P for Phlostigon”. I grew up as the only non-smoker in my family (admittedly my sisters didn’t take up smoking until they were over 18 but grandmother, great-uncle, great-aunts all smoked and none of the early deaths in that generation were smoking-related). I don’t believe that it has harmed me – if anyone wishes to assert that it has, may I invite them to race me over any distance longer than 50km? Last time I raced more than 50 miles I beat everyone less than half my age…
Smoking MAY or may not, harm people by making them more susceptible to various diseases but the as the heaviest smoker I knew was still using an 8 lb hammer to stake out her roses in her 80s I find ASH’s claims ridiculous and, as a quondam statistician, I find their abuse of statistics grossly offensive.
I should like to encourage young people to avoid taking up smoking because it may harm their health and is inordinately expensive but first I want to see ASH abolished and all its employees banned for life from pretending to publish statistics and secondly I want pubs and other places being allowed to have smoking rooms so that non-smokers are not faced with smokers lining the pavement to the distaste of the non-smokers with an efficient sense of smell. It is a horrendous waste of time and money to force smokers out of their office to have a smoke when most workmates don’t have any problem – a decade ago the pushy youngster with an MBA who styled himself “Managing Director” (although he wasn’t a director) walked into my workplace and proposed a vote on a “No Smoking” ban – he backed out after the non-smokers said that they would vote against it while the smoker sat quietly looking embarrassed.
05.08.2010 15:52
[...] report that Wandsworth Council officers are essentially under instructions not to catch anyone breaking the smoking ban. [...]
08.08.2010 11:51
Gentlemen,I do believe we are witnessing the end of the nanny state…………………Its time to repeal the worldwide bans and bring those behind these draconian laws against freedom and liberty to justice. Perhaps even a nuremberg trial of sorts,so that the obese,the smokers,the psychiatric patients that smoked and were denied the small comforts of a ciggie,to all those who have suffered at the hands of public health nazis around the globe,we demand justice for.Lets not forget those scientific professionals and acedemics who also had the guts to speak up against health facism and were then castagated by the medical community for saying the truth!!! The world is owed and we demand justice!
10.08.2010 00:43
aloha to all across the big pond…we are now entering Round #5 in our battle against Hawaii’s smoking ban, fighting for smoking exemptions for bars…to date going on 5 years into the ban, not one bar has been cited…due to our efforts in lobbying and standing strong as a unified body of bar owners, we have kept the law UNENFORCEABLE…close to 150 bars/tavs/pubs in the state are allowing smoking in some form or another…VICTORY IN UNITY! fight on Patriots!!! AND UNITE! aloha kawika crowley IN THE END, TRUTH, IS ALWAYS THE LAST ONE STANDING…..
HawaiiSmokersAlliance.net TheSmokeVote.com Hawaii Bar Owners Assoc.
10.08.2010 07:22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1uEPOCHnrQ
We are foghtiong back in Kansas
10.08.2010 14:38