Be Excellent To Each Other

I stayed at a hotel last weekend, and was startled to be offered a smoking room. Were hotel rooms never covered under the ban? If not, then what about the argument of the ban being to protect staff that have to work in those locations - are they just ignoring that in the case of hotel cleaning staff?

You're not in the room smoking when they clean the room though. Plus they're poor people so stuff 'em.

But there was discussion at the time over whether to allow segregated smoking rooms inside, and they were ruled out on the grounds that even though no-one actually worked in there, people would have to go in occasionally to clean - just like in hotels.

There's the thing about company cars too, isn't there? You're not allowed to smoke in those, even if the car is only used by you.

If you employ staff to work around your home can you then not smoke there? Grim...?

Maybe it was just a really good room. Was the receptionist wearing a bright green mask and gurning a lot?

Perhaps the room was slightly on fire and they were offering you a cheaper rate because of that.

It's considered place of residence, so it's allowed.

But it's a place of employment for the cleaners. It seems a distinction that makes a nonsense of the rest of the ban. It's not like it's any harder to go outside in a hotel than it is in a bar. Is it just so people can have a cigarette in bed?

The was a news story on the BBC once about some council or another instructing people not to smoke in their own homes for a minimum period of two hours before any council workers or contractors paid a visit.

Excuse me whilst I fall about laughing.

Did the house actually belong to the council in that case?
And what was the visit for? Social work, looking after their children and tidying their houses up?
I'd be tempted to say "fair enough" if so..

No, it a place of residence.
I'm not allowed to smoke in the corridor or other public areas though.
And I don't smoke, of course

It got trumpeted in the press as "COUNCIL TRIES TO BAN SMOKING IN OWN HOMES!", but it was actually just a polite request.

The council could refuse to send council workers round if the homeowner didn't comply, of course.

I agree it's a nonsense but thems the rules. The next step of course is banning people from ever smoking in their own home because they employ a cleaner.... or even because at some point in their lives they're going to need to call a plumber it.

There's got to be some division. That's it.

I'd say "because they have children" would be a more valid reason..

But..


Yup.

It just seems to me an odd place to draw the line. If you're allowing smoking in hotel rooms, why not allow smoking in other segregated places indoors, as long as staff aren't required to go in there while the smoking is occurring? Suitable venting/extraction is assumed.

I wonder if a restaurant could designate itself a hotel, with two rooms, one smoking and one not. Then customers can go into either room and order room service. Admittedly they'd be odd rooms, with no beds, and lots of table and chairs instead.

Apparently that's what they're trying for some coffee shops in Amsterdam.

Yes, it does apply to them. Seriously!

Ha! Apparently you can't smoke cannabis outside the cafe, but you can't smoke tobacco inside the cafe.

I think it was for any council visitor for any occasion, and all houses that fell under the area controlled by the councils.

They say it was a polite request, but there was a follow-up on the news where council workers were refusing to enter houses that 'smelled of smoke', which of course meant lazy gits under council contacts couldn't be bothered to do loads of jobs.

Shit, if you'd posted this last night or this morning, I'd have taken a photo of a notice in my room, which stated you could not smoke in any rooms in the hotel, due to the 2006 smoking regulation (or whatever it's called).

Because the hotel thing is an accident of the residence clause, not a specific clause in itself.

Then that's badly thought through legislation. I want consistancy, damnit.

Doesn't it also apply to prison cells and submarines?

[EDIT: the former; not sure about the latter. I guess the tars can always go outside]

An inevitable development, I suppose

Oh absolutely, or rather legislation ruined through compromise, much the same as the idiot "God doesn't mind you opening on Sunday but only for 6 hours" shit.

The sooner shops are open for a full working day on Sunday, the better. This religious bullshit hangover bollocks is taking far too long to be overturned. It's better than my young'un days when NOTHING was open at all, but I want more.

When my Mum's carers come around to sort her out in the morning and at lunchtime, they smoke like chimneys (as does my Dad) in my Mum's kitchen and she doesn't bat an eyelid.

Not council employees, but still.

It's not just religion. The fact that people wouldn't see their families is involved, too.

They should take Tuesday off instead. Nobody goes shopping on that day anyway because they're all at work.

Or, get this, Sunday!

But they don't take the day off. Shop-type people usually work for 6 hours on a Sunday - all they're doing is having less shifts than they would if they worked all day.

So on Sunday they have less shifts than they would if they worked all day.

No - less people have shifts. Remember that a huge proportion of weekend retail staff are teenagers working only 4 or 6 hours.

The law already guarantees time off every week.

But of course Dad working in an office gets time off on Saturday and Sunday, and Mum working in Tescos gets time off on Monday and Thursday (say) because she has to do a Sunday shift. Result = not seeing their family.

But Mum doesn't have to do a Sunday shift, because Spotty Dave will do it for half the price.

No he won't, due to the age discrimination laws.

I see an awful lot of middle aged women working behind the checkouts at the supermarkets, even on weekends.

Hang on - you're telling me Mum doesn't want to work Sunday, which means the age descrimination laws don't apply. If Mum wants to work on Sunday, then surely she doesn't want to see her family, so win?

Indeed, that 2 hours gained by doing 8 hours on Sunday instead of 6 must be hugely valuable.

And this ignores that the big stores (the only ones affected by this, people working in shops smaller than 500sq ft aren't allowed families) are open 24hr and employ people 24/7 anyway. In fact by till training shelf stackers they end up pretty much employing the same number of people whether the store is open or not overnight.

I'd ban anything from being open on a Sunday, naff all to do with religion, naff all to do with working, I just reckon people are essentially morons who as a secies need, just once in a while, to be stopped from just constantly consuming all the fucking time. I do loads of shoppig and stuff on a Sunday, because I can. I'm simply too fucking lazy to organise and do it the rest of the week. Hospitals, power stations, my local pub - all good reasons to have them open on a Sunday, but not fucking Tescos, who any educated retail worker I know would gladly rape into oblivion if they could, for Sunday working.

Why does your pub have to be open and not Tesco? What's the difference?

Yeah... what are you doing in your local pub, if not consuming?

And of course it really helps these people if they can shop at non-normal times too.

Well, you can go to Tescos at any time at all between 8am Monday and 12pm Saturday, so that's a fair wodge of the available time covered off right there.

I want 24 hour shops all day every day, for convenience.

I expressed a theory about this to my gf a while ago. I theorised that in the future, everything, and I mean everything, will be open 24 hours . Due to population growth, eventually there will be so many people that there physically wont be enough space to accommodate them during current 'peak' times, and so the world would have to shift to two 12 hour systems where one half gets up, works, and shops, and then goes and stays at home while the other half get up and do the same. You heard it here first.

And how did she feel about being subject to this requirement?



God, just look at, say, M&S in Bristol during the lunch hour. What makes it worse is that the "peak" times also seem to bring out the crumblies, who are presumably desperate to pretend they still have a place in the world, and come to see all the people living actual lives. Rather than sitting at home smelling of wee.


Sounds a bit like the old "stagger your journey" suggestion.

I haven't seen the word 'crumblies' used since Adrian Mole.

I'd be happy if the shops were free to open when they want and just let demand determine whether there's a need to be open all day on a Sunday. Wander round Newcastle-under-Lyme on a Sunday and you'll see that barely anything opens at all, let alone for the full Sunday opening hours but in Hanley, nearly everything is open.

Mind you, I'd also like Natwest to be open past 5pm and all day Saturday but never mind.