With the smoking ban five days away, it's not just the enjoyment of smokers that will suffer and the health of non-smokers that will benefit.
The ban will also have an effect on business. But which industries will benefit and which will suffer? Some of the winners and losers you will have worked out for yourself, but not all are so predictable. Who, for example, would have thought that cigarette manufacturers might actually fare better because of the ban? And it’s not all doom and gloom for the alcohol industry either.
Outside seating is a godsend
WINNERS
Pubs with beer gardens
And big beer gardens of course. Once winter kicks in however (albeit seemingly later and later with each passing year), one imagines that all pubs will suffer as some smokers choose to stay at home.
Off licences
Which of course is a boon to off licences. Drinks manufacturers will hope to offset a dip in sales at the tap with an increase in sales of cans and bottles sold to supermarkets and off licences.
Pavement cafes
Cafes with seating on the pavement are traditionally something we expect from the French, Spanish or Italians. However, they are increasingly popular in the UK – especially in affluent or boho areas – as the climate gets warmer and Brits grow more cosmopolitan. As the smoking ban appraoches, the more seats a café can fit outside, the better.
Nightclubs with outside areas (or the space to make provisions for one)
Nightclubs don’t tend to have beer gardens as such and few have any kind of outside area, so it could be boom time for the few that do have some sort of courtyard area. Clubs will be desperate to convert any kind of unenclosed area they have.
Awning manufacturers
All this can only be a boon of companies that make awnings.
Patio heater manufacturers
Ditto for manufacturers of patio heaters. Despite concerns about their contribution to global warming, orders will doubtless be up.
Snuff manufacturers
Already getting more popular apparently, sales of this alternative method of getting one’s nicotine can only rise.
The quit-smoking industry
But I can’t imagine many people being too fond of the idea of snorting ground tobacco, maybe opting instead to just wean themselves off it altogether. The ban will be the cue for a lot of people to quit who have given up before, only to relapse in the pub.
Nicotine patch manufacturers (perhaps people might use them just to get them through a night in the pub and carry on smoking as normal at home), hypnotherapists, acupuncturists, quit-smoking publishing and manufacturers of drugs designed to inhibit cravings are just a few of the many and diverse industries that will be on hand to help smokers that wish to call time on their habit.
LOSERS
Drinking establishments
There is a school of thought that says the ban will draw into pubs and bars a lot of non-smokers hitherto put off by smoky atmospheres. This might be true to an extent, but I think it will be outweighed by the smokers choosing to stay at home. After all, people that drink a lot are by their very nature more cavalier about their health and more likely to smoke than tee totallers or moderate drinkers.
Pubs who serve a lot of food might be less worried as they don’t rely on chain-smoking alcoholics. The JD Wetherspoons chain has actually already made a number of its pubs non-smoking of its own volition, and professes to be not in the least bit bothered about the ban.
Nevertheless, investors are more jumpy, as shares in the major pub chains tumbled this week. And if you look across the Irish Sea and North of the border there is evidence that profits in the licensing trade have been hit by the ban.
Nightclubs without outside areas (most nightclubs then)
Most nightclubs won’t have a courtyard or any kind of convertible outside space.
It’s quite a common practice for clubs to stamp people’s hand with their logo on their way in so they can get back into the club for free if they need to leave. It’s likely most clubs will resort to this once the ban is in force. It creates logistical problems, especially for clubs with large capacities, but if they don’t make some sort of provision for smokers, clubbers will desert them in droves.
Bingo halls
The I’ve-been-smoking-all-my-life-and-it-never-did-me-any-harm brigade might feel a bit long in the tooth to quit now. Half of the UK’s three million regular bingo players smoke and tend to range from late middle aged to their seventies and beyond – ironic given smokers are supposed to die before they get old.
It’s even more of an inconvenience for people who often have difficulty walking and still wear coats even in the height of summer to have to go outside in the cold to smoke. It could be tough times ahead for the bingo industry.
Dry cleaners
Apart from spending more money than you can account for and regretting switching to spirits or eating that kebab on the way home, another thing that characterises a night out in the pub is that you’re clothes will reek of smoke when you emerge. Happily, this will no longer be the case.
Not so happily for the dry cleaning industry, perhaps. It might not be quite so bad, however, as maybe people tend to go to the dry cleaners because of stains rather than odours. And the booming market in red wine should see to it that dry cleaners remain a popular service.
Cigarette manufacturers
Almost forgot about the most obvious loser, aside from pubs. Tobacco sales fell sharply in Ireland and Scotland in the first few months after the ban.
However, in both countries sales recovered and are now actually higher than before the ban was in place. And tobacco companies are well used to legislation and taxes being used to cut down the UK’s consumption of the weed. Having absorbed the impact of year-on-year tax hikes, the imposition of ever larger and starker health warnings, bans on advertising on television and in sporting events and countless legal actions, the tobacco industry is probably confident of its sales not being dented too much.
Cigarette vending machine companies
In that case cigarette vending machine companies should be OK then – shouldn’t they?
Actually, if people have to go outside to smoke anyway, perhaps they’ll be more willing to walk the extra 100 yards to get cigarettes cheaper from the local newsagents. As things stand vending machines charge a premium for the convenience of buying them in the pub, and often have fewer cigarettes in the packs.
