A 19 yr old was fined £2,000 for breaking Health & Safety laws. For smoking a hookah next to gas cylinders at his workplace. He also suffered burns and had to pay £2000 costs.

The company had already received general safety advice but because Mohammed Wasim Natha of Blackburn ignored the advice and smoked and injured himself, he was taken to court.

Councillor Arshid Mahmood said: “The defendant did not heed the warnings that health and safety officers had given him in an effort to assist the company.

“As a result, there was a serious risk both to public safety and employees. There was lack of awareness about the requirement of health and safety regulations which are in place for both the protection of staff and the public.

“I hope this case acts as a warning to anyone else who allows shisha-smoking on their premises. It is not only dangerous but we will prosecute anyone we catch breaking the law.“

So it’s very dangerous to smoke. I didn’t know that. I thought it was more dangerous to have leaking gas cylinders around the property because even a spark from a light switch could have caused an explosion. The way the case has been written about in all the MSM that I could find it comes across that the smoking was the evil illegal bit whilst the H&S breech was only a technicality. I had to go as far afield as the Asian Image to find more details of the case which didn’t use the smoking of the hookah as the main point. The Asian Image includes the facts that the whole place was pretty much a H&S nightmare with trailing cables and inadequate lighting and leading to a total of 7 offences of H&S and just 2 for the smoking.

Even ASH who are so desperate to highlight the dangers of smoking have highlighted it.

SBML

Andrew Duffin
February 23, 2011 at 09:52

Well actually, the smoking probably was the only bit that was clearly and
unequivocally illegal; most Health and Safety issues have ifs and buts and
maybes and heretofores around them that do allow a certain latitude and
discretion, on the parts of both the employer and the H&S advisers and
authorities.

But smoking in the workplace is against the law, regardless of
circumstances, end of.

So whether you approve of that particular law or not, it’s clear
enough.

woodsy42 February 22, 2011 at 21:02

“I have is that certain people don’t give a flying fig about the smoking
ban. ”

I have a shisha pipe which I occasionally use at home. It’s quite pleasant.
But you don’t have to use tobacco, the herbal/fruit mixtures are quite fun and
nicotine free. If they are in breach of the smoking ban then I guess every
wood burner or open fireplace is ripe for a ban?

SadButMadLad
February 22, 2011 at 22:38

This is what the law says:

(a) “smoking” refers to smoking tobacco or anything which contains
tobacco, or smoking any other substance; and
(b) smoking includes being
in possession of lit tobacco or of anything lit which contains tobacco, or
being in possession of any other lit substance in a form in which it could
be smoked.

It doesn’t define that smoking involves inhaling so if you’ve never
smoked but hold a lit cigaratte you could be breaking the law. But you could
do an reductio ad absurdum and say that if you had a cigarette in a fire it
would be included too (as it’s in a form that could be smoked if you
took it out of the fire). You could even say that holding a lighted taper
could be caught within the regulations because if you breath in the smoke
you are “smoking” it.

It seems it includes menthal cigs as well as other more dubious forms of
cigarettes as “any other substance”.

Engineer February 22, 2011 at 19:39

If I found anybody smoking near industrial gas cylinders, I would either
give them a short, sharp lecture, or I would leave the premises very smartly.
Oxygen is possibly the worst – you can smell most fuel gasses and avoid
lighting up, welding shield gasses will prevent you from lighting up (and
possibly asphyxiate you) – but oxygen will make your fag go with a bang.

As far as I’m concerned, if people want to smoke that’s fine – but not
where it might endanger me, if you’d be so kind.

Richard B February
22, 2011 at 16:51

“certain people don’t give a flying fig about the smoking ban”

Very true. But also, isn’t shisha smoking seen as an ethnic practice? I’m
sure the smoking ban is flouted regularly in shisha bars without the local
enforcement officers raiding the place every five minutes. It would be racist,
innit?

Perhaps, like all the grooming and abuse of vulnerable white girls, it’s
“not a problem”?

Gildas theMonk
February 22, 2011 at 15:31

These Shish/Shisha bars (there are various spellings) are quite common in
and around West Yorkshire; Bradford, Huddersfield and the like. They spring up
in all sorts of premises and the general impression I have is that certain
people don’t give a flying fig about the smoking ban. Whether that is for good
or ill, I do not say! But they are often in small restaurants or back street
premises where I don’t think the writ of ‘Elf and Safety runs too often