Cigarette machine ban under attack
Saturday 3rd July 2010, 2:29PM BST.
Gavin Marsh of the Imperial Hotel has bought his own cigarette machine and placed it in a back room to get around new restrictions imposed this week. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0993330)
PUB owners have slammed the new blanket ban on cigarette machines.
Originally, over-18s establishments would have been exempt but an amendment for a ban on all machines was voted through by the States this week.
Imperial Hotel owner Gavin Marsh said he could not see how banning the machines would reduce the number of people smoking. He is determined to keep selling cigarettes and travelled to the UK to buy a small cigarette machine for £2,000. He has installed it in a room behind the bar and people will now have to buy their cigarettes through the staff.
‘It is a grey area, but as far as I am concerned it will not be illegal,’ he said. ‘It will be out of view of the public, so it should be inside the rules. We are lucky we have this space to put the machine in. Not all pubs and hotels are so lucky.’
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Maybe they should ban cigarettes altogether,after all they banned legal highs and cigarettes kill more people.
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Imperial Hotel owner Gavin Marsh should be shot at dawn for his ignorance.Why on earth cant he realise that smoking causes death, many health problems and costs the state a fortune in health care.
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Neil – arent you missing the point, whatever the merits of the decision – it simply demonstrates the crassness of the way our system of government and the bunch of clowns we have elected to the states – they can wake up one morning with a cracking idea and go into the states with out any consultation and create whatever law they feel like – and looking at the likely list of idiots we have elected, heaven knows whats next. Please give us a real choice at the next election so that we can actually elect some deputies that represent us.
Most of the current shower are worse than useless as they are, although well-intentioned, bloney dangerous!
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Well I will not be impressed by the ‘Nanny State’ philosophy caring so well for its smokers until they concentrate on drink. Then I might be impressed. Drunks all over town being ill everywhere, casualty kept busy by drunks and women and children short of money as their partners have spent a load of money on booze over the weekend. Mind you, it is a man’s world so probably considered OK for men to drink themselves silly – but not smoke.
I would love to know how much money the health scheme pays out per year on alcoholics, liver disease etc. but then no one is going to answer that as it is a drinkers island and therefore sacrosanct!
Get as drunk as you like folks – but do not smoke while doing it!
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I agree 100% with ‘Neil’ and ‘I. Le Page’. Gavin Marsh is irresponsible and lacks any caring for his fellow citizens. I am a smoker. I look forward to seeing a total ban on tobacco sales of any kind.
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Recently heard, Future considerations !! Persons under the age of 16 yrs found intoxicated in public areas will be given annual anti alcohol injections to clear their systems.I wonder if they are thinking of doing this with young smokers.
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Neil and Expat80.
Absolutly; peddeling his filth on us god fearing sheeple.
We need some sort of Wicker Man to show these animals what kind of people they are up against.
We should be cotrolled completly, people like us can’t be responsible for ourselves.
Thakfully you 2 had the courage to admit this to the world.
If I go into a pub to get bladdered and gamble the last thing I want is to be able to see people buying cigerettes.
The only acceptable time to see someone smoking, is when they are being tied to the stake in front of a firing squad.
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A ban on vending machines is a good thing if thought about properly.
The reason most bar’s still want vending machines is to reduce theft, cigarettes are a high cost item and are treated as such by locking them up. Bars will still sell cigarettes for a time until the profit is removed by theft then they will not.
I can not understand why if the states are that concerned about sales of cigarettes the do not make it controlled by licensing so to sell tobacco products you will have to conform to rules about display etc.
Anyway just an idea ;-)
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They won’t ban cigarettes while they make so much money on the taxes!
I don’t know if it is the case here, but as I understand it (can’t remember where I got this from though), in the UK, the taxes earned on cigarettes far outweigh the cost of those made ill by smoking.
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Veritas
What a strange post!
so if the pubs stop selling them because of theft (which you seem to think is a good idea?) then surely people will just get them from the shops? or do you actually think if you cant get them at the local pub people will give up or stop others starting?.
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The duty and vat they make from the smoker is enough to cover the health charges for yonks.
The money they are losing is now resulting in wards and theatres being close, after spending all that money on the new wing at the hospital what a joke!! Will banning displaying cigarettes stop the young no it wont, the further they stack the odds the more its wanted, weren’t any of you young once!!
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I started at 15 because I kept being told how bad it was for you and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about-yes teenage mind. But Ive kicked the habbit more or less! You cannot make a smoker give up by banning cig. machines in pubs. Will the states reimburse the companys for loss of profit and the pubs for the cost of their machines and cig. already in them. I think not.
Its not a perfect world but there are a lot worse things than smoking out there, be pleased we live where we live.
I think they sould ban the “smoke free zone” stickers as these so called perfect people that show them in their cars get on my nerves. But this will never happen -alas.
Its a legal product and adults have a right to spend their money on what legal product they want. I think we should all get a new hobby and stop equating smokers to worshipers of the devil. Because that is how all these smoke haters make smokers feel.
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Advertising doesn’t make people want to smoke, nor does a cigarette machine.
If you’re a smoker you’ll buy them.
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