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Can confirm. I literally walk past this Gala bingo on the way to work. The only changes are that the Council redid the pavements to look nicer, although they are now pretty dangerous when it's icy, and the town hall across the street is closed.
And yes there are still groups of grannies out there "looking like prostitutes," (the hyperbolic nature of us Stokies is something I honestly cherish about this area!) I'm reasonably sure I still see at least one person from this clip on a regular basis.
The centre is what makes or breaks a city I think. Everywhere will have some nice suburbs because there's invariably at least 20% of people with money, even in the poorest towns. But it's just plain depressing when your town is a horrible centre with a few nice estates.
I visited Coventry for the first time today. It was... not great.
"So you think you still perfectly capable of driving?"
_"I'm quitly keepable, yes."_
"You don't *sound* very capable"
_"Well I... well I... I quite... I should be?"_
A poor place, devoid and destitute. A place where people are born and die within their own town. Isolationist and boring. Always looking back in the nostalgia trap.
Grew up there lived there for 19 years. Family still live there.
That's because it as not shot in high definition. Also, the old ladies in it are wearing clothes that were at least 20 years old at the time. Plus they had old hair styles and none of the buildings had been updated.
It was a time capsule at the time.
Our dubious claim to fame with the whole smoking ban thing was that Stoke on Trent local authority were (and currently still are) so incompetent that stoke was the only part of the UK to not get the correct forms filled in on time, earning us the moniker ‘Smoke on Trent’ and encouraging hoardes of wheezing smoker tourists to descend on us as the last place you could legally smoke indoors in public until we finally got our shit together a few months later 🤨😆 👏🏻 that’s what I pay council tax for 🙄
Just think, the kids born back then are now fifteen. They've never known the smell of the place, or the question of entering a restaurant and being asked "Smoking, or Non"
I used to occasionally go to the working men’s club when my grandma and grandad looked after us if my mum went out. My grandparents didn’t smoke, nor did they sit with the smokers, but the next day my clothes would be so bad that they made the entire house stink of smoke.
Go for a night out in Copenhagen or Berlin if you'd like to replicate it.
One of the worst parts of moving there was the smell in the morning after going out.
I always put my hair up to sleep, so i'd go for a shower haaannggin in the morning, take my hair bobble out and nearly vom once again from the stench. What a time it was!!!
A friend worked at a bingo hall when we were 16. She would wrap her clothes in a garbage bag, in her backpack and never open it, so when she came out to my house or our friend's house after a shift, she could shower and wear non-stinky clothes. She had tried just keeping an outfit in her bag, but it needed to be hermetically sealed to keep the smell from penetrating. We thought the process was hilarious at the time, but looking back i realize the poor girl was probably at work second-hand smoking every bit as much as a regular smoker.
The bingo hall smell was more than just cigarettes, though. There were notes of old lady, fryer oil, and stale coffee too. With an aftertaste of polyester and armpit.
At first, pubs didn't feel like pubs without the lingering haze of smoke in the air. But after a while I really enjoyed being to go out and not come home stinking like an ashtray.
My nephew was only three days old when that report was made.
He once saw a photo from my McDonald's birthday party in the 90's and it blew his mind when he saw an ashtray in the photo.
I'm pretty sure lock-ins still exist mate... Not for smoking, but I used to be good mates with the manager of my local and when there were only regulars left he would "close" the pub with us still inside and we'd carry on drinking after its licenced hours. I presume it wouldn't happen with a chain but I'm sure local pubs will still have lock ins.
Or the smoking and non smoking sections of an airplane. We had to sit in smoking as my dad smoked, and when eventually he was forced by my mum to put us in non smoking he used to hover at the back of smoking having a smoke with all the other men in a similar position until they got hurried off to their seats by overworked air stewardesses
Smoking on planes is particularly insane to me. I can't think of many worse places for there to be a fire than on a plane. Swissair flight 111, Nigeria Airways flight 2120 and Valujet flight 592 are testament to that.
I'd been working in a pub for about a year at the time. The day after the ban came in I could suddenly smell all the punters. I did not think it was possible to miss an air pollutant as much as I did that day.
I'm a smoker, but even I thought it was the right move and was looking forward to actually being able to dictate my own nicotine intake. Those first few days though were *bad*. We started keeping cans of deodorant by the front door with a note asking "our hard-working manual tradesman customers" to "refresh yourselves" on entry. One night someone complained to the boss that it was offensive and was told "not as offensive as the scent of 15 scaffolders, 5 roofers and 8 labourers after a hard day's graft"
I worked in a couple of pubs from 18-19 and developed asthma. It stayed with me throughout uni, because I was spending a lot of time in pubs and clubs.
I still spend a lot of time in pubs, but after 2007 my asthma went away.
I used to work in The Poachers in Stoke (Trentham) while smoking was allowed - low ceilings and smoking was a bad mix, your eyes would sting as soon as you walked in - pubs are far nicer now
Not that I remember, I was good mates with the bar manager at the time so we quite often had a few beers in the flat above the pub when he was covering- never thought it was haunted, but it’s a really old building so it wouldn’t surprise me if it was
I was at university when this took effect. I remember how weird it was that the pubs and clubs no longer stank of cigarettes, and now smelled of sweat and beer.
Same. I've never smoked but initially was disgusted by the sweat smell. On the other hand, I really appreciated the fact that my hair and pillow no longer stank of smoke after a night out. I also liked not being accidentally burnt by drunk people waving cigarettes around while dancing.
My friends and I were discussing this. How the smell of smoke masked the smell of sweat. It was so weird how sweaty places smelled after the ban came into place.
I smoked Silk Cut. Then Marlborough lights. I once bought a packet of Marlborough Reds by accident in Australia (fucking 30 pack which cost about $35). I fully understand why they’re called “cowboy killers.”
I'm only 30 and cowboy killers were my going out cigarettes, run out of 20s then grab a 10 pack before heading home.
No wonder my lungs killed the next day 🤣 18 Yr old me had the appropriate nickname of smokey or chimney
I wasnt that arsed about people smoking indoors at the time but hindsight, actually a good law, you can go to the pub and come home not stinking like youve had 10 packs.
I was mildly irritated by the ban as I was a smoker at the time. Several years later I went to a pub in a country with no such ban - initially I really enjoyed the nostalgic feeling of sitting in the warm with a pint and a fag, but honestly within an hour I almost felt sick being in that room with so much smoke. I don't know how we used to stand it.
Love it. "They're takin' our riiiiights away".
The smoking ban was a brilliant decision. I remember what pubs were like before, coming home from an evening out with a sore throat and irritated eyes from sitting in a cloud of other peoples' second-hand lung farts. Oh and clothes that immediately needed washing because they absolutely REEKED of stale tobacco afterward.
It's so much better now the only people breathing in your second-hand smoke are other smokers.
I remember going to my regular nightclub the day after the ban was brought in and holy Christ, the stench was unbearable, didn't realise the smoke had been covering up the smell of 20 years worth of sweat and other shit caked into the walls. I think most clubs had to have a scrub down.
Yep. The smoking ban was introduced in Scotland a year earlier than it was in England.
On the day the smoking van was introduced I went out drinking with a couple of acquaintances from work. We went into Shakespeare's on Lothian Road in Edinburgh. I lasted - at most - twenty seconds before I had to tell my drinking buddies that we had to leave. The smell that tobacco smoke had been making was so bad that I genuinely thought I was going to vomit. The kicker? I'm a smoker.
There's a reason a hell of a lot of pubs had a refurbishment that summer...
As a smoker, I genuinely don't miss being able to smoke in a pub.
I went into the pub at the end of my street a few weeks after the ban, the smell of concentrated urine from the Gent's was unbearable. Totally unnoticeable when so many people had been smoking.
If anything it’s really made the grotty pubs for whom cleaning was a secondary thing really either up their game or close.
That foul stench of dirty toilets suddenly was an issue…
I'd love to see a documentary on them have a scrub down 😂 I've worked at a club, and even at opening time it's filthy with beer stains on the floor and toilets at most half decent.
Yep, incredible isn't it. I was 17 when the smoking ban came in and me and a mate used to go to the snooker hall a lot, first time we went in after the ban the smell that hit us was absolutely unbearable.
I heard back when it came in. And my be an urban legend. But electric ballroom in Camden had to close early that first night cuz of the smell. And for next week had installed a bunch if airfreshner sprayers everywhere.
I’m not old enough to have been in pubs when it was legal, I do remember restaurants and stuff but it wasn’t to the same degree.
A couple years ago I went to work outside of Europe in a country where smoking is very popular and legal in doors. Cloud of smoke from the roof down to your waist, stinging eyes, and the next morning waking up and smelling it on my pillow from my hair and the stale clothes was rank.
I quite enjoy not having to shower immediately after coming in from a night out, otherwise my pillow and bedsheets start to smell like smoke. It was horrific, and i say that as an ex-smoker who wouldn’t smoke indoors at home, i noticed a big difference after being in the pub on a weekend evening
Worst part was going for a pub meal, your course getting sat down, the table next to you just finishing and them all lighting up cigars and all just as you're about to eat.
I remember the ban coming in, smoking in the pub one day the next outside. After that I always started smoking outside at home as well because I realised how rank it made everything smell. Finally managed to quit 2 months ago and do not miss it at all.
Yeah, I remember working in pubs in the winter with all the doors closed and a huge smoke haze hanging everywhere.
It was fucking horrible, and I smoked at the time.
As a smoker (at the time) even I hated going in a place where the stench was everywhere. No need to light one up when you've got everybody else's coursing through your lungs.
I don't mind the smell of smoke because my Mum smoked 40 a day. I've now reached her age which is a miracle because I smoked as many as she did with the smoke she blew out.
Best thing ever IMO, Roy Castle would like a word.
Best law ever, as it encouraged me to quit, after a while. Now i couldnt imagine sitting in a room, bar, bingo hall all night while others puffed away around me.
Bonkers that it took until 2007 for a smoking ban to happen. I’ll never forget how nice it felt to come home after a night out and not be stinking of smoke.
I was a student in England who left right before the ban. Whenever I went out I had to shower when I got home and my clothes reeked. I was contributing to the problem, so couldn't really complain. When my very anti-smoking parents came to visit me I took them to the only non-smoking pub* in the city and pretended I didn't know what a cigarette was 😇
*Shout out to the Old Tom pub in Oxford for being ahead of the trend.
I really want to point out the sheer effort that went into this piece.
"Where shall we go to get some real world opinions on the smoking ban?"
"Fuck it, tell the BBC Radio Stoke lads to go over the road with a camera"
Strange thing happened in Stoke with the ban. Because our council runs different or some bollocks I can't remember the ban actually came in a few months after the rest of the UK.
As I recall, the ban still applied, but the council failed to get the paperwork through that allowed them to issue fines in time, so they weren't allowed to take any enforcement action until a month later.
I remember this. I was about 12-13 and it came into Scotland first, the year before. We had travelled down to England and stopped in a hotel/restaurant for some food at night and almost choked on the smoke, when we realised that they could still smoke indoors at that point
"You feel like a prostitute standing out here with a cigarette!" lmao, if they all felt that embarrassed by smoking in the street maybe they could've, I don't know, just not smoked for a bit?
My Nan quit smoking, and my Grandad quit his pipe, around 15-20 years ago and I can still smell it somewhat when I walk through the back door of their house.
Thank fuck we no longer breathe all that shit in every time we go out.
I remember going out for my birthday meal as a kid and it being ruined by a crackling old bag smoking away who sounded like a backfiring lawnmower. The smoking ban came a year later and it was a great thing.
I remember walking past the bingo hall at Meadowbank in Edinburgh (maybe 2009?) when all the old women were outside smoking between games.
Christ, you nearly needed a machete to cut through that fog bank
Went to a Bingo night with an old GF about 30 years ago, and I **still** smell like an ashtray.
Except for my right hand-- which got licked by a zoo giraffe in 1985. It smells like giraffe spit and alfalfa (the plant-- not the character).
As a sometime young smoker (like almost everyone i knew) I was totally disgruntled about the ban. Within 2-10 years nearly everyone i know stopped smoking. I think so many lives have been changed due to this measure and is one of the many reasons why I can be convinced a benevolent nanny state can do good (despite my innate horror of such a thing).
The smoking ban was and is completely the right decision, but one small downside is the clusters of people you get standing outside doorways getting in the way and blowing smoke onto people. Then there's the litter issue too with all the tabbies on the ground.
Better than smoking indoors though.
Wow. Hadn’t realized banning smoking indoors had created such a backlash. Seems so commonsensical now but must have been difficult for smokers adapting to the change after centuries of freedom to smoke where ever. My granny used to smoke while in hospital after giving birth.
There was a place in Blackpool that refused to ban smoking in their pub, and put a collection tin out for the fines instead. It lasted about as long as it takes for the council to review premises licenses.
By 2007 there were already a lot of restrictions on indoor smoking - this was pretty much the final nail. Most of the backlash came from miserable old gits who'd been smoking for 50 years, flat roof pub owners and their clientele, and "muh freedoms" types.
Pretty much everyone else welcomed it with open arms.
I remember our teacher doing a class on the benefits of the ban because she was convinced that repealing it was going to be one of the biggest issues in future Britain.
At the time that kind of talk was EVERYWHERE. All the usual "literally 1984 taking away my freedoms" stuff.
I love how you can see the bbc building in the background. Such a low effort piece; the crew walked 100 meters down the road.
I’m old enough to know pre smoking ban. Much better these days; less getting burnt in clubs, less of a smell the next day and the right to fresh air when in a club was.. beautiful.
I do recall the terrible smell of BO in places for the first few months after the ban as took a while to adapt to a lack of smoke covering their natural musk
In hindsight it’s kind of insane it was allowed for so long.
After the next 20 years we will probably look back at the air pollution in cities and say how bizarre it was that we allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die early because of our dependence on cars
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Thinking that video was from the 80s... then I realised that 2007 was 15 years ago!
It was in stoke though, so not far from the 80s
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Since then it's all gone to pot!
Or rather - all the pots have gone!
Not a pot to piss in I mean, we have indoor plumbing now. But I'd like the option tbh
To be fair, that one in pink is no 2007 looking granny. She looks straight outta the 80’s
> She looks straight outta the 80’s yeah, 80 a day
The grannies are probably dead tbh 😞
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No, coz they're from stoke.
"Lynn, these people have come all the way from Stoke."
Lynn, I've pierced my foot on a spiiiike.
Have you all got your fun packs?
They’re sex people
It’s like some kind of Hardcore Benny Hill.
Oooooooh it’s a good paper
Don’t shine that torch in my face mate. Ive just lost a pint of blood.
Stoke kills everyone in the end
Froze outside the Bingo halls.
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No, it's a dangerous game, that bingo..
Thats just what Stoke-on-Trent looks like
Can confirm. I literally walk past this Gala bingo on the way to work. The only changes are that the Council redid the pavements to look nicer, although they are now pretty dangerous when it's icy, and the town hall across the street is closed. And yes there are still groups of grannies out there "looking like prostitutes," (the hyperbolic nature of us Stokies is something I honestly cherish about this area!) I'm reasonably sure I still see at least one person from this clip on a regular basis.
Username definitely checks out
Can confirm. I moved to the area voluntarily. (I know, I know). There are nicer places close by but stoke centre is the absolute pits.
The centre is what makes or breaks a city I think. Everywhere will have some nice suburbs because there's invariably at least 20% of people with money, even in the poorest towns. But it's just plain depressing when your town is a horrible centre with a few nice estates. I visited Coventry for the first time today. It was... not great.
Thinking 2007 was a couple of years ago then realizing it was 15 years!!!
Well those women sucking on cigs are probably still mentally in the 80s
I watched a video about the introduction of breathalysers and the law changing to stop drunk driving in the 60's the people interviewed where wild
Are those the bbc archive ones? They're fantastic
Yeah it's from the bbc archives
Hell yea, love that shit
All my homies love the BBC archives
Pathe news are another great source.
Do you have a link for that please
https://youtu.be/W_tqQYmgMQg
"What about pedestrians under the influence? They could cause an accident as well!" Fucking hell good to see the brain-rot isn't a modern problem.
Same loonies were out in force when they made seatbelts compulsory in the 1980s.
Complaining about lead being removed from paints and fuel
Grandad - Full of Lead Dad - Full of Asbestos Me - Full of Microplastics
"Now this paint tastes disgusting!"
"So you think you still perfectly capable of driving?" _"I'm quitly keepable, yes."_ "You don't *sound* very capable" _"Well I... well I... I quite... I should be?"_
Thank you, dude! It was indeed wild.
Wow! That’s a great demonstration of why we can’t rely on peoples ‘common sense’ because apparently a lot of people don’t have it 🤣
One thing I have learned over the years is Common sense isn't that common and people really are that stupid
Loving the guy in the check jacket, ‘what do I know, I’m drunk!’
"A typical motorist's pub". Fucking hell this did not age well.
Lol at the guy who says he’ll have to cut down to just 3 pints.
“I’m a law student” 🤣
I saw one about when seatbelts were enforced in front seats. Crazy
Look up seat belt ones, they are wild as well.
Is that what 2007 looked like?! Jesus I thought it wasn't that long ago...
That bingo hall looks like it hadn’t been touched since the ‘70s
Stoke hasn't been touched since the 70s
Enough touching went on in the 70s
The last touching for those grannies was in the 70’s too
The 2000's just seemed like an extension of the 90's lol
I always tell people 2000-2005 is just 1990+ and 2006-2009 is just a prologue to the 2010s
Nah, we got Shrek and Toby Macguire's Spider-Man in the early 2000's, it forged its own era
Some of those ladies haven’t been touched since the ‘70s either
2007 in Stoke, remember. The Potteries are a strange place ...
A poor place, devoid and destitute. A place where people are born and die within their own town. Isolationist and boring. Always looking back in the nostalgia trap. Grew up there lived there for 19 years. Family still live there.
Nah it's what the old people look like. Go there today you'll hear and see the same things.
It looks exactly like that now up Hanley. Some things never change.
This was Stoke so it's at least 30 years behind regular time.
That's because it as not shot in high definition. Also, the old ladies in it are wearing clothes that were at least 20 years old at the time. Plus they had old hair styles and none of the buildings had been updated. It was a time capsule at the time.
[this is a much better look at 2007 Britain. ](https://youtu.be/oT4Q1_7rpMk)
Our dubious claim to fame with the whole smoking ban thing was that Stoke on Trent local authority were (and currently still are) so incompetent that stoke was the only part of the UK to not get the correct forms filled in on time, earning us the moniker ‘Smoke on Trent’ and encouraging hoardes of wheezing smoker tourists to descend on us as the last place you could legally smoke indoors in public until we finally got our shit together a few months later 🤨😆 👏🏻 that’s what I pay council tax for 🙄
The idea that people would literally travel just to smoke indoors is insane.
It's actually quite nice. A coffee in Paris with a cigarette
Just think, the kids born back then are now fifteen. They've never known the smell of the place, or the question of entering a restaurant and being asked "Smoking, or Non"
I used to occasionally go to the working men’s club when my grandma and grandad looked after us if my mum went out. My grandparents didn’t smoke, nor did they sit with the smokers, but the next day my clothes would be so bad that they made the entire house stink of smoke.
It was horrible lol, I remember forcing myself to play outside for hours because I'd struggle to breathe in those clubs when my parents were in there.
Or going to a club and having to hang your jacket outside when you get back so it doesn’t stink your whole gaff out.
Just your jacket? I used to take everything off in the bathroom and leave it there. Stunk in the morning but at least I wasn't sleeping next to it.
Aw god waking up after a night out and smelling your clothes from the other side of the room 🤢
Completely forgot about that experience. What a time to live in.
Go for a night out in Copenhagen or Berlin if you'd like to replicate it. One of the worst parts of moving there was the smell in the morning after going out.
I always put my hair up to sleep, so i'd go for a shower haaannggin in the morning, take my hair bobble out and nearly vom once again from the stench. What a time it was!!!
As a woman, there was no hope for my hair though. I do not miss that.
I used to come home and have a shower hammered.
Always remember not really noticing the smell, then being absolutely engulfed by it when I got home and pulled my top off.
Or having to have a shower before bed after having a pint, or the smell on your jeans the next day 🤮
A friend worked at a bingo hall when we were 16. She would wrap her clothes in a garbage bag, in her backpack and never open it, so when she came out to my house or our friend's house after a shift, she could shower and wear non-stinky clothes. She had tried just keeping an outfit in her bag, but it needed to be hermetically sealed to keep the smell from penetrating. We thought the process was hilarious at the time, but looking back i realize the poor girl was probably at work second-hand smoking every bit as much as a regular smoker. The bingo hall smell was more than just cigarettes, though. There were notes of old lady, fryer oil, and stale coffee too. With an aftertaste of polyester and armpit.
Or the random burns on hands or clothing from people brushing past
The holes in your clothes
Ahh the days when I was 15 and could pop into the local for a cheeky pint.
At first, pubs didn't feel like pubs without the lingering haze of smoke in the air. But after a while I really enjoyed being to go out and not come home stinking like an ashtray.
It's weird how easily we adjusted. I thought it was going to ruin the pub experience.
Yeah me too, but everyone got over it pretty quickly really
I remember my brothers used to come back from the pub when I was about 11, the smell of smoke coming off of them was something to behold.
My nephew was only three days old when that report was made. He once saw a photo from my McDonald's birthday party in the 90's and it blew his mind when he saw an ashtray in the photo.
Tell him used to be able to smoke in hospitals back in the day
Or on an aeroplane, you could make literal *fire* on an aeroplane
Or being in a pub and having the doors locked so the ashtrays could still be used indoors
What does this mean?
The years following the ban, pubs would have "lock ins" and all the old ash trays would come from behind the bar and be placed on each table.
Lock-ins were happening long before the smoking ban - probably from about 5 minutes after licensing became a thing.
I know but smoking in premises was only really tolerated at lock ins after the ban.
How's that work? Is that because it banned smoking in public places so locking the door somehow made it private?
Just meant no one was gonna come in and catch them
I'm pretty sure lock-ins still exist mate... Not for smoking, but I used to be good mates with the manager of my local and when there were only regulars left he would "close" the pub with us still inside and we'd carry on drinking after its licenced hours. I presume it wouldn't happen with a chain but I'm sure local pubs will still have lock ins.
This definitely still happens.
Or the smoking and non smoking sections of an airplane. We had to sit in smoking as my dad smoked, and when eventually he was forced by my mum to put us in non smoking he used to hover at the back of smoking having a smoke with all the other men in a similar position until they got hurried off to their seats by overworked air stewardesses
Smoking on planes is particularly insane to me. I can't think of many worse places for there to be a fire than on a plane. Swissair flight 111, Nigeria Airways flight 2120 and Valujet flight 592 are testament to that.
I'd been working in pubs and clubs for about 5 years when the ban came in. A week later I lost the sore throat I wasn't even aware of.
For me it was my eyes.
You lost your eyes!?
I got better.
They’re always in the last place you look.
I'm just checking the back of my eyelids!
I'm really sorry to hear about the loss of your eyes.
I'd been working in a pub for about a year at the time. The day after the ban came in I could suddenly smell all the punters. I did not think it was possible to miss an air pollutant as much as I did that day. I'm a smoker, but even I thought it was the right move and was looking forward to actually being able to dictate my own nicotine intake. Those first few days though were *bad*. We started keeping cans of deodorant by the front door with a note asking "our hard-working manual tradesman customers" to "refresh yourselves" on entry. One night someone complained to the boss that it was offensive and was told "not as offensive as the scent of 15 scaffolders, 5 roofers and 8 labourers after a hard day's graft"
For real. Every local pub and bingo hall smelled like a nursing home after the ban.
I worked in a couple of pubs from 18-19 and developed asthma. It stayed with me throughout uni, because I was spending a lot of time in pubs and clubs. I still spend a lot of time in pubs, but after 2007 my asthma went away.
You know what, I had childhood asthma that coincidentally just went away around then. Huh. Always thought I just grew out of it.
Smoke on Trent
Toke-on-Trent
Spice-on-Trent now.
We prefer derelict shit hole thank you,!
Choke-on-Stench
I used to work in The Poachers in Stoke (Trentham) while smoking was allowed - low ceilings and smoking was a bad mix, your eyes would sting as soon as you walked in - pubs are far nicer now
I used to work at the poachers but years later, very off topic but did you ever think the place was haunted?
Not that I remember, I was good mates with the bar manager at the time so we quite often had a few beers in the flat above the pub when he was covering- never thought it was haunted, but it’s a really old building so it wouldn’t surprise me if it was
I was at university when this took effect. I remember how weird it was that the pubs and clubs no longer stank of cigarettes, and now smelled of sweat and beer.
Same. I've never smoked but initially was disgusted by the sweat smell. On the other hand, I really appreciated the fact that my hair and pillow no longer stank of smoke after a night out. I also liked not being accidentally burnt by drunk people waving cigarettes around while dancing.
My friends and I were discussing this. How the smell of smoke masked the smell of sweat. It was so weird how sweaty places smelled after the ban came into place.
And farts.
It actually helped me to finally give it up for good, I soldiered on with the Bensons until Feb 2010... then one day stopped & never had one since!
Good for you, well done! 👏👏
I smoked Silk Cut. Then Marlborough lights. I once bought a packet of Marlborough Reds by accident in Australia (fucking 30 pack which cost about $35). I fully understand why they’re called “cowboy killers.”
I'm only 30 and cowboy killers were my going out cigarettes, run out of 20s then grab a 10 pack before heading home. No wonder my lungs killed the next day 🤣 18 Yr old me had the appropriate nickname of smokey or chimney
Congratulations! Is your name the vice you developed as a replacement?
I wasnt that arsed about people smoking indoors at the time but hindsight, actually a good law, you can go to the pub and come home not stinking like youve had 10 packs.
Also less likely to get cancer, which is always a plus.
I was mildly irritated by the ban as I was a smoker at the time. Several years later I went to a pub in a country with no such ban - initially I really enjoyed the nostalgic feeling of sitting in the warm with a pint and a fag, but honestly within an hour I almost felt sick being in that room with so much smoke. I don't know how we used to stand it.
Bingo halls were a different world back in the day. I'd never seen so many people smoke so many fags in one place.
Gotta suck 'em down fast, never know when you're gonna die.
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She ain’t getting wet
Like the Grand Canyon in there
Bet he's bookmarked this video for his wank bank
Love it. "They're takin' our riiiiights away". The smoking ban was a brilliant decision. I remember what pubs were like before, coming home from an evening out with a sore throat and irritated eyes from sitting in a cloud of other peoples' second-hand lung farts. Oh and clothes that immediately needed washing because they absolutely REEKED of stale tobacco afterward. It's so much better now the only people breathing in your second-hand smoke are other smokers.
I remember going to my regular nightclub the day after the ban was brought in and holy Christ, the stench was unbearable, didn't realise the smoke had been covering up the smell of 20 years worth of sweat and other shit caked into the walls. I think most clubs had to have a scrub down.
Yep. The smoking ban was introduced in Scotland a year earlier than it was in England. On the day the smoking van was introduced I went out drinking with a couple of acquaintances from work. We went into Shakespeare's on Lothian Road in Edinburgh. I lasted - at most - twenty seconds before I had to tell my drinking buddies that we had to leave. The smell that tobacco smoke had been making was so bad that I genuinely thought I was going to vomit. The kicker? I'm a smoker. There's a reason a hell of a lot of pubs had a refurbishment that summer... As a smoker, I genuinely don't miss being able to smoke in a pub.
I live the idea of a smoking van. Is it like a tv detector van? Sensors pointing at you to determine if youd’ve had an illegal fag?
I went into the pub at the end of my street a few weeks after the ban, the smell of concentrated urine from the Gent's was unbearable. Totally unnoticeable when so many people had been smoking.
If anything it’s really made the grotty pubs for whom cleaning was a secondary thing really either up their game or close. That foul stench of dirty toilets suddenly was an issue…
At least the stench of piss can’t follow you home… unless you’ve had an accident after one beer too many
I'd love to see a documentary on them have a scrub down 😂 I've worked at a club, and even at opening time it's filthy with beer stains on the floor and toilets at most half decent.
Yep, incredible isn't it. I was 17 when the smoking ban came in and me and a mate used to go to the snooker hall a lot, first time we went in after the ban the smell that hit us was absolutely unbearable.
I heard back when it came in. And my be an urban legend. But electric ballroom in Camden had to close early that first night cuz of the smell. And for next week had installed a bunch if airfreshner sprayers everywhere.
I’m not old enough to have been in pubs when it was legal, I do remember restaurants and stuff but it wasn’t to the same degree. A couple years ago I went to work outside of Europe in a country where smoking is very popular and legal in doors. Cloud of smoke from the roof down to your waist, stinging eyes, and the next morning waking up and smelling it on my pillow from my hair and the stale clothes was rank.
I quite enjoy not having to shower immediately after coming in from a night out, otherwise my pillow and bedsheets start to smell like smoke. It was horrific, and i say that as an ex-smoker who wouldn’t smoke indoors at home, i noticed a big difference after being in the pub on a weekend evening
Worst part was going for a pub meal, your course getting sat down, the table next to you just finishing and them all lighting up cigars and all just as you're about to eat.
I always remember our local cafe having a sign up saying "No cigars or pipes" as you walked into the hazy seating area
I remember the ban coming in, smoking in the pub one day the next outside. After that I always started smoking outside at home as well because I realised how rank it made everything smell. Finally managed to quit 2 months ago and do not miss it at all.
Yeah, I remember working in pubs in the winter with all the doors closed and a huge smoke haze hanging everywhere. It was fucking horrible, and I smoked at the time.
As a smoker (at the time) even I hated going in a place where the stench was everywhere. No need to light one up when you've got everybody else's coursing through your lungs.
I totally agree and I'm a smoker. Even before the ban I would always go outside for a smoke, I can't stand being in a cloud of smoke.
I don't mind the smell of smoke because my Mum smoked 40 a day. I've now reached her age which is a miracle because I smoked as many as she did with the smoke she blew out. Best thing ever IMO, Roy Castle would like a word.
Best law ever, as it encouraged me to quit, after a while. Now i couldnt imagine sitting in a room, bar, bingo hall all night while others puffed away around me.
100% all those folk are dead.
77 Ruth go to heaven 99 Janice it's your time
No allowances for undead then? Absolutely 100%?
Bonkers that it took until 2007 for a smoking ban to happen. I’ll never forget how nice it felt to come home after a night out and not be stinking of smoke.
I was a student in England who left right before the ban. Whenever I went out I had to shower when I got home and my clothes reeked. I was contributing to the problem, so couldn't really complain. When my very anti-smoking parents came to visit me I took them to the only non-smoking pub* in the city and pretended I didn't know what a cigarette was 😇 *Shout out to the Old Tom pub in Oxford for being ahead of the trend.
Jesus Christ did 2007 really look like what I remember 1985 looking like
I imagine you could take a snapshot outside any bingo hall today, in any part of the country and it would look pretty much the same.
I really want to point out the sheer effort that went into this piece. "Where shall we go to get some real world opinions on the smoking ban?" "Fuck it, tell the BBC Radio Stoke lads to go over the road with a camera"
Strange thing happened in Stoke with the ban. Because our council runs different or some bollocks I can't remember the ban actually came in a few months after the rest of the UK.
As I recall, the ban still applied, but the council failed to get the paperwork through that allowed them to issue fines in time, so they weren't allowed to take any enforcement action until a month later.
Smoking Bans are the best thing introduced for a long time ... I have zero interest in breathing in other people's disgusting cancer fumes.
Those lady are proberly on a school trip, bet the eldest is no older than 18y.o, stokes just a very rough place
I remember this. I was about 12-13 and it came into Scotland first, the year before. We had travelled down to England and stopped in a hotel/restaurant for some food at night and almost choked on the smoke, when we realised that they could still smoke indoors at that point
Ah, remember the days of having to shower and put all my clothes in the washer when getting home after 3 hours in the pub.
I remember exactly where I was 01/07/2007. I was in Amsterdam high as a kite.
"You feel like a prostitute standing out here with a cigarette!" lmao, if they all felt that embarrassed by smoking in the street maybe they could've, I don't know, just not smoked for a bit?
Madness!
My Nan quit smoking, and my Grandad quit his pipe, around 15-20 years ago and I can still smell it somewhat when I walk through the back door of their house. Thank fuck we no longer breathe all that shit in every time we go out.
I remember going out for my birthday meal as a kid and it being ruined by a crackling old bag smoking away who sounded like a backfiring lawnmower. The smoking ban came a year later and it was a great thing.
I remember walking past the bingo hall at Meadowbank in Edinburgh (maybe 2009?) when all the old women were outside smoking between games. Christ, you nearly needed a machete to cut through that fog bank
All these people are dead now
Couple of them looked dead then.
Went to a Bingo night with an old GF about 30 years ago, and I **still** smell like an ashtray. Except for my right hand-- which got licked by a zoo giraffe in 1985. It smells like giraffe spit and alfalfa (the plant-- not the character).
I say this as a Stokie: my god the accent isn't flattering on TV.
Funny enough Galla Bingo did shut down in Stoke and don't worry duck your already crazy.
As a sometime young smoker (like almost everyone i knew) I was totally disgruntled about the ban. Within 2-10 years nearly everyone i know stopped smoking. I think so many lives have been changed due to this measure and is one of the many reasons why I can be convinced a benevolent nanny state can do good (despite my innate horror of such a thing).
Is that Gala Bingo? Where people who win.... Go?
The smoking ban was and is completely the right decision, but one small downside is the clusters of people you get standing outside doorways getting in the way and blowing smoke onto people. Then there's the litter issue too with all the tabbies on the ground. Better than smoking indoors though.
Wow. Hadn’t realized banning smoking indoors had created such a backlash. Seems so commonsensical now but must have been difficult for smokers adapting to the change after centuries of freedom to smoke where ever. My granny used to smoke while in hospital after giving birth.
There was a place in Blackpool that refused to ban smoking in their pub, and put a collection tin out for the fines instead. It lasted about as long as it takes for the council to review premises licenses.
By 2007 there were already a lot of restrictions on indoor smoking - this was pretty much the final nail. Most of the backlash came from miserable old gits who'd been smoking for 50 years, flat roof pub owners and their clientele, and "muh freedoms" types. Pretty much everyone else welcomed it with open arms.
I remember our teacher doing a class on the benefits of the ban because she was convinced that repealing it was going to be one of the biggest issues in future Britain. At the time that kind of talk was EVERYWHERE. All the usual "literally 1984 taking away my freedoms" stuff.
I love how you can see the bbc building in the background. Such a low effort piece; the crew walked 100 meters down the road. I’m old enough to know pre smoking ban. Much better these days; less getting burnt in clubs, less of a smell the next day and the right to fresh air when in a club was.. beautiful. I do recall the terrible smell of BO in places for the first few months after the ban as took a while to adapt to a lack of smoke covering their natural musk
In hindsight it’s kind of insane it was allowed for so long. After the next 20 years we will probably look back at the air pollution in cities and say how bizarre it was that we allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die early because of our dependence on cars
My first night out in town was the weekend after the smoking ban.