What is less well known though, is that ALL public places including shop and churches are being told to put up ghastly A5 signs in a prominent position remind their patrons that smoking is not allowed on the premises.
Er excuse me? When was the last time you lit up in church? Or a shop? Exactly. One has never smoked in these places and certainly not in the last few decades. So why insist on yet another sign to inform a person of something that is not going to happen in the first place?
It gets worse! The government has seen fit to issue millions and millions of signs to the owners of public premises together with detailed 26 page colour brochure advising companies how to implement the ban. What a waste!
It gets worse!! Company vehicles that are used by more than one member of staff and home premises where staff work also need a sign. Right thinking companies adopted appropriate policies years ago and never needed a sign to enforce it.
And it gets even worse.
In order to implement the law and ensure these signs go up and stay up, the powers that be have decided to give council officials the power to issue fines to companies not complying with the law. The fine for this misdemeanour is FIVE TIMES GREATER THAN SOMEONE CAUGHT SMOKING!!!
Decide for yourself who is the criminal here, however The Worm that Turned will not stand for any of this nonsense. Smoking has never been allowed on our premises. It is a disgusting habit that kills people. (Yes, the voice of an ex smoker). But we will not, repeat not, be putting any unnecessary signs up. Already we have to carry many different signed messages for the consumer (we are open, mind the step, exit, price, opening times, promotional messages, area messages). These are important and useful messages for our customers and we design them to fit in with the ambience of the shop. To place another sign reminding customers of something they know in the first place is just not on. Besides, it is a negative message and we want our customers to be greeted with warm welcoming noises as they come through the door, not the voice of the nanny.
Apparently, you can design your own sign so long as it carries the international no smoking symbol. Frankly we cannot see the point. If the idea behind this is that it blends in to the background, why have a sign that people cannot see? In any case, millions and millions of signs saying no smoking will just add to the visual clutter of the country and their message will consequently be invisible anyway.
A far better idea would have been to design a positive sign that said to smokers 'you CAN smoke' in a particular location. The message could have then been: if there is a cover over your head you CANNOT smoke UNLESS you see a sign. Everybody would know where they stood, millions fewer signs would be needed and a smoker would have to be able to point out the sign to prove they where in the right. Under the current rules they can still claim not to have seen the sign.
Alternatively, like Jersey, the legal requirement should have been for all Licensed Premises, Registered Tourist Premises and Registered Places of Refreshment to post the official No Smoking sign at the main entrance to the business.
Lest it be forgotten, we are supporting the ban 120% but are 150% against the way it is implemented.
So therefore, we call upon Gordon Brown, as one of his first acts as PM, to perform a U-Turn and revise the way this law is implemented to avoid widespread non-compliance, so that the real issue can be addressed properly and shop keepers like ourselves can get on with selling goods to people, not assaulting them with signs.
In summary: great law, lousy implementation, the Worm is not happy. Change it Gordy. Please.
And we are not alone; unsurprisingly an e-petition was started, but this is now closed. And now, over 2 years on..... we're proud that our shop front has never been tainted by these ugly signs. But now, out of the blue, we're getting visits from 'Tobacco Control' asking us to put signs up. Haven't these people got better things to do?