A leaked plan to drastically extend smoking restrictions in Britain to outdoor spaces has sparked outrage among activists and some politicians.
According to The Sun, ministers have been “plotting” to make beer gardens, outdoor restaurants and other open-air spaces smokefree. The proposed restrictions exempt private homes, along with large open spaces such as parks or streets.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “It’ll be the end of pubs.”
“Imposing nanny state regulation like this on pubs and restaurants would not only be wrong but economically damaging,” said Former Home Secretary Priti Patel.
“These are small businesses, run by hardworking people, that provide jobs up and down the country.”
Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ rights group Forest vowed to fight any attempt to extend smoking bans to outdoor areas.
“Smoking bans must be evidence based and there is no evidence that smoking in the open air is a significant threat to the health of nonsmokers,” he said.
“The indoor smoking ban did enormous damage to the pub industry. Extending the ban to beer gardens could force many more pubs to close.”
Accusing the ruling Labour party of using “bully state” tactics to force adults to quit smoking, Clark said, “If it’s true that the government intends to extend the smoking ban to a raft of outdoor areas, Britain will no longer be a nanny state.
“We will have crossed a line and become a bully state in which people are punished for the terrible crime of lighting a cigarette outside a pub or in a park.”