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UK government axes pub garden smoking ban

25 October 2024 By Eloise Feilden

Sir Keir Starmer is due to drop the idea of including pub gardens and restaurant terraces from the outdoor smoking ban following outcry from the sector.

The government is dropping the idea of including these hospitality venues, as well as racecourses, from the outdoor smoking ban, according to The Sun.

Lighting up outside hospitals and schools will still be outlawed when the new legislation, first outlined in late August, comes into effect.

It is thought that the Labour Government’s decision to cut pub gardens and restaurant terraces from the ban is a direct response to criticism from hospitality bosses.

Rumours of the policy were met with disapproval by those campaigning to protect and promote the UK’s pubs, restaurants and nightclubs.

Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) CEO Michael Kill warned that the ban would “risk dividing opinion and imposing yet another regulatory burden on businesses already facing considerable challenges”.

Reem Ibrahim, acting director of communications for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), said that a ban on outdoor smoking would be “another nail in the coffin for the pub industry”.

UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nichols was similarly damning, suggesting that it would cause “serious economic harm to hospitality venues”. She suggested that the ban on smoking could force people to take their habit into their own homes rather than outside pubs.

In 2010, the IEA suggested that the indoor smoking ban introduced in 2007 was responsible for three-quarters of pub closures, as smokers became less eager to visit their local, warning that this new suggested legislation could do the same again.

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