Clearing The Air

Here's a familiar song in a Celtic land

In the last six months 24 Dublin Pubs have called last orders for the final time. Despite having only 10% of the bars in Ireland to cater for 35% of the population Dublin pubs are closing in unprecedented numbers and being turned into apartment and retail complexes.

Read more here.

Anti smoking groups and smoking ban supporters try to blame everything but the smoking ban for the dramatic increase in Irish bar closures. However, if one were to go back one hundred years and chart Irish bar closures the line will effectively flat line until March 2004, the time the smoking ban was imposed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the lies by the pro-smoking ban activists need to be investigated and prosecuted. For while those lies benefit the pharmaceutical interests which fund them, there are tens of thousands; if not hundreds of thousands; harmed by those same lies.

Business losses on this side of the pond, from smoking bans.

posted by marcus aurelius @ 1:15 PM