Potential Ban on Outdoor Smoking in Venues: Impact on the Hospitality Industry

The government are looking at and considering plans to ban smoking outdoor various different venues. So that includes outdoor pubs, nightclubs. Of the smoking areas and nightclubs, some small parks, outdoor restaurants. But then what this does do is it will hurt the hospitality industry, and it will have hugely disastrous effects on many of them. We remember back in 2006 with the indoor smoking ban. This is effectively an extension of that ban. And we saw huge impacts on venues. We saw a drop in the number of smokers that went to those particular industries. And we saw a huge pub closures. A quarter of pubs have closed since, uh, start of the century. The fact of the matter is, I think pubs are such a key part of British culture. But also just from that moral perspective, we are hurting an industry that is already on its knees after experiencing the pandemic and experiencing incredibly high business rates and various other economic consequences. And economic situations. Actually means that they’re going to be suffering regardless.