A lone Galway pub has thrown down the gauntlet to the Irish government over its three-month-old ban on workplace smoking -- by inviting customers to rebel and light up.
"We're taking a stand," declared Ciaran Levanzin, co-owner of the Fibber Magee's pub in the central Eyre Square of Galway, where ashtrays returned to tables on Tuesday and customers were encouraged to puff away.
It marked the first deliberate effort by any of Ireland's more than 10,000 pubs to defy the ban. The measure has been almost universally observed -- and, in a country where 70 percent of adults do not smoke, broadly popular -- since its introduction on March 29.
However, Fibber Magee's rebellion proved hugely popular in Galway, a bustling university city famed for its night life.
RTE, Ireland's state broadcaster, reported live outside the pub on Tuesday night that the place was "absolutely crammed with drinkers and smokers," after which a huge roar of approval could be heard from the crowd inside watching the news.
Levanzin said he had already been obliged to lay off one-third of his workers since the ban came into force. He said more than half of the pub's previous customers had been smokers.
"Why do this? Because we're going out of business. We might as well go out with a puff of smoke," he said.
Health Minister Michael Martin led the push for the ban, arguing that anybody employed in enclosed workplaces should not be exposed to cancer-causing smoke. The move -- the first by any nation -- was modeled on similar measures imposed in California, New York and more than a dozen other US cities.
Inspectors from the government-appointed Western Health Board stopped by Fibber Magee's and warned the pub's other co-owner, Ronan Lawless, that they could face a US$3,700 fine and, eventually, the loss of their liquor license.
But Lawless said such punishment, if it comes to that, wouldn't matter.
"With the smoking ban, our business was going down the tubes anyway. We've no option but to invite our smoking customers back and see what happens," he said.
The Vintners Federation of Ireland, which represents more than 6,000 pub owners, said on Tuesday that business nationwide had fallen by 15 percent to 25 percent since the ban and predicted worse would come.
"Many small, rural, family-owned pubs have been hit particularly hard since the introduction of the ban and have serious concerns for their livelihoods and the future of their staff," said federation president Seamus O'Donoghue, who also runs a pub in the midlands market town of Portlaoise.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS