Sir Keir Starmer's plan to ban smoking outdoors in England slated by Burnley landlady Justine Bedford of The Royal Dyche pub
An award winning Burnley landlady has slated Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to look at introducing tougher rules on outdoor smoking as ‘absurd.’
Justine Bedford, who owns and runs The Royal Dyche in Yorkshire Street also said the plan, which aims to reduce the number of preventable deaths linked to tobacco use, as ‘badly thought through.’
Commenting on reports that smoking could be banned in some outdoor spaces, including pub gardens and outdoor restaurants, Justine said: “It will just become another source of conflict between customers and staff. Are we expected to force customers out onto the streets to smoke? “Who’s going to police it?”
The newly elected Prime Minister has said ‘we have got to take action’ to reduce the burden on the NHS. Tobacco use is the UK's single biggest preventable cause of death, killing two-thirds of long-term users and causing 80,000 deaths every year.Health authorities also say there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Justine, who was named as Licensee of the Year by the British Institute of Innkeeping, said that while she understood the reasoning behind the ban to reduce the burden on the NHS, she believes the impact would be ‘relatively small’ and also take a long time.
She added: “It’s frustrating that the hospitality industry could receive yet another blow, there has got to be a better more effective ways to reduce this burden.”