Smoking compromise leaves staff at risk

The health of tens of thousands of English hospitality workers will remain under threat if plans for a partial ban on smoking go ahead, according to exclusive Caterer research.

Over a year on from the announcement that English pubs that don't serve food would escape the smoking ban, we have discovered that a substantial number of pubs have opted for fags over food.

All the companies contacted by our survey admitted they have sites within their estates where alcohol remains the main sales driver.

The revelation comes despite consistent Government claims that food is too integral to modern pubs to jettison.

The Department of Health has also asserted a partial ban will give bar workers greater choice over where they work.

However, chief medical officer Liam Donaldson has publicly said a food-based ban "leaves those most exposed bar workers] unprotected, and will increase health inequalities in the country, especially in pubs in the North."

The British Hospitality Association has predicted the partial ban will leave 100,000 hospitality workers still exposed to second-hand smoke.

Pub company Shepherd Neame's chief executive Jonathan Neame said: "The distinctions between private members' clubs and pubs, and food pubs and non-food pubs make nonsense of protecting bar staff."

Even Mitchells & Butlers, which now makes most of its money from food, conceded 400 sites had "a low food sales mix, where it would be commercially advantageous for us to revert to smoking".

• Irish pub sales grew in the third quarter of this year for the first time in more than three years. It ended a decline that had continued since the first quarter of 2002 - two years before the Irish smoking ban.

By Chris Druce

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