No smoking - and no complaints either

Jul 2 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

Close-up shot of woman smoking

“Enforcement officers will be out and about – especially over next weekend and we will take enforcement action and issue penalty notices if the ban is being breached. But overall the response has been phenomenal.

“People have taken to the ban incredibly well and the ban has been enforced as well as we could have possibly hoped. People in Liverpool have wanted this for a long time.”

Claire Grieve, manager at The Pump House, at Albert Dock, said she had been surprised that on the first day of the smoking ban that not even one customer had tried to light up.

She said: “This is the first day of the ban and everyone has been great about it and have just headed outside to smoke.

“Everybody we have spoken to say that they very much welcome the ban as a good thing for the country.

“We are just now waiting for a smoking shelter.

“We are a listed building and have planning permission lodged with the council for a smoking shelter so hopefully then customers will be even more inclined to go outside to smoke.”

While smokers at the Hightown Hotel sheltered from yesterday’s downpours under the pub’s new gazebo, those at the Pump House had to brave the rain if they wanted a cigarette.

Juan Andrews, from Spain, said: “We used to be singing in the rain and now we are smoking in the rain.

“It just shows how bad smoking is for you that you want a cigarette so much that you will come out in this weather for one.”

Inside the pub, non-smoker Alan Jones, from Manchester, said he was astounded by the difference the smoking ban was making.

He said: “It is going to be so good to wake up tomorrow morning and not smell of smoke.