Smoking Joking?
Will someone please tell me this is a joke? A photoshop? It has come to me from a reputable source that I know flies into and out of Aberdeen airport – but surely not? £1 coin operated fee to enter the smoking area?
June 30, 2013 at 09:52
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A smoking addict hooked from the days I attended a certain Approved School
of undeserved notoriety in recent years I have made occasional, unsuccessful
attempts to quit over the years but I enjoy a cigarette with my coffee, after
lunch and after dinner – and a few in between. I appreciate that non-smokers
shouldn’t have to put up with second-hand smoke and most countries have
legislated as to where smokers can smoke without prejudicing others. However,
having to actually pay to enter a smoking area seems akin to charging you to
commit slow suicide!
Swedish Snus and some rosary beads are probably the way to go for nicotine
addicts when traveling and for other smoke-prohibited areas: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-21/sweden-avoids-eu-ban-on-flavorings-in-snus-smokeless-tobacco.html
Exports
to the EU are banned for nonsensical reasons but Snus is easily ordered
on-line and I’m expecting some in the mail next week in another attempt at
quitting smoking and getting my nicotine rush…
- June 29, 2013 at 07:04
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Some years ago I travelled to the UK from Oz, via Hong Kong. W/Wife. The
new airport had been opened just three days or so.
In need of a cigar (me) and she a more lady-like Benson and Hedges we went
in search for a smoking area within the vast barn that is the terminal. Barely
any electronic sign was working, nor anything else ‘automatic’ for that
matter. Young women were climbing tall ladders to write aircraft details in
‘chinagraph’ on hastily erected ‘whiteboard’ covers on the main directions
displays. There were ‘No Smoking’ signs everywhere. We searched and we
searched and finally found a low-fenced area where a café of sorts was
operating, mid-concourse.
It was seen from a distance because of the plumes of smoke above. The
tables had plastic cups overflowing with ciggie-butts amid a throng of puffing
people. We joined them. Refreshed after a few puffs I looked around at the
passers-by, which included several Chines (HK) policemen. I thought to check
to see if an exception was being made for this area, in the general
unpreparedness of the place. So I asked. “This IS a smoking area, isn’t
it?”
“No” came the curt reply. “No Smoking”.
“But look”, I said, “everyone here is smoking”.
“No they are not, because there is no smoking allowed”.
You have to love Hong Kong’s police.
- June 28, 2013 at 21:02
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I have several distinct problems with this “enclosed glass area” thing, but
the MAJOR one is simply that by accepting it we are buying into and
legitimizing a psychosis.
If a psychiatrist is treating a patient and the patient believes the
psychiatrist will hear them better if the doc agrees to wear pink underwear on
his head, does the doc do that? No. One of the most important rules in
psychiatry (and any REAL psychs out there who’d like to correct me if I am
wrong are welcome to) is **NOT** to go off dancing in the daisy fields with
your patients. They need to understand that the daisy fields are not real and
that they are really sitting in your office.
Once you go out there with them, you have lost control and given substance
to their fantasy world. You might THINK you’re making progress for a little
bit but then, suddenly, the patient pops up and exclaims, “Oh NO Dr. Mike! A
giant turtle has just popped up out of its hole and says you can’t do that!” —
and, of course, since the patient controls the giant turtle, you have no
defense.
A separate, well-exhaust ventilated-but-not-airlock-enclosed area with
normal amenities is tolerable, even though I might argue it’s unnecessary from
any reasonable health concern standpoint. I can grant that some people are
unusually sensitive to odors, and have psychological problems and misguided
beliefs that make such arrangements reasonable for society at this point in
time. I can even grant that some people **MAY** conceivably have physical
“trigger” type problems that being near such an area and such areas should not
be directly impinging upon areas where people with such disabilities might be
forced to go in the normal course of events. (95% or so of such cases are
unlikely to actually have a physical basis, but psychosomatically-based
illnesses can produce effects just as real, physiologically, as real
illnesses.)
But beyond such comfortable and reasonable separation we should not go: it
is buying into, accepting, and supporting mental illness instead of trying to
cure it. When Stephanie Stahl first wrote her “Recovery from ASDS” page based
on some of my writing I didn’t fully appreciate just how insightful she was:
that is no longer the case. She TRULY summarizes what is going on out there in
today’s world in a way that’s significantly beyond what I had done. See:
http://wispofsmoke.net/recovery.html
for more.
Don’t join the dance: you’re only making things worse. **DO** use these gas
chambers as an opportunity to organize. The Antis have inadvertantly done us a
favor by providing concentrated gathering points for us to communicate with
people who need to hear what we have to say. But to simply go in there and
smoke with the other prisoners? No. Never. And if you DO quietly go in there
and just accept it and stare silently at the other inmates with hooded eyes,
you deserve whatever ultimately comes down the line to you.
– MJM
- June 28, 2013 at 15:57
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This blog seems to attract readers with certain ‘attitudes’ classified as
libertarian by our host. Could I suggest a poll of smokers/non smokers? I have
always suspected fellow addicts of the weed (I have been pretty much a chain
smoker for the last 40 years) tend to sedition and perhaps this could now be
scientifically determined —it will obviously prove a useful tool to those who
watch over us
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June 28, 2013 at 16:19
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I am certainly not a smoker (youthful asthma and chain smoking Mum and
wife No1) but I tolerate it and particularly can’t abide the box tickers and
fellow travellers who go around telling everybody else how to run their
lives without for a moment realising the paucity of their own narrow
existences. There are those that point to democracy- now there’s an
overblown notion.
- June 28, 2013 at 17:14
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Ditto. Never smoked, but parents did.
As an aside I recall that the lead character in “The Grapes of Wrath”
only took up smoking in order that he could “join in with the crowd” as he
hobo-ed through Depression-hit America.
- June 28, 2013 at 19:51
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Yeah- smoked a few Disques Bleus to keep up the image- along with
Levis, black polo neck and fancy boots! Even recited poetry on Brighton
Beach- now iling near where jack Kerouac’s family came from!
- June 28, 2013 at 00:10
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You should look up Google to see some of the things that the Japanese do.
They have enclosed glass areas in department stores, platform end smoking
areas, specific areas in the Shinkansen and seem to be well aboard the Pay to
Puff express
http://www.tobaccoreviews.net/premium-smoking-areas-opened-in-tokyo/
- June 30, 2013 at 05:33
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Don’t forget that in Japan you can smoke in bars and resrtaurants.
- June 28, 2013 at 00:02
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Nothing wrong with it IMO. As Jon said above, at least they have a smoking
area unlike many other UK airports. And as Saul points out, smokers will help
to make sure brethren don’t have to pay. My occasional contributor mentions
similar camaraderie in this article about a smoking area in Birmingham which –
although not as blatant as a charge – requires you to have purchased at the
bar first.
I remember reading about the Aberdeen area at the time and got a bit angry,
but the thing wouldn’t have been built at all if it were to be taken out of
airport budgets. They had to justify it by charging users. There are others
paid for by tobacco companies (can’t remember where) but since antis have
condemned anything like that as evil, the charge is the only way anyone will
be allowed to smoke a legal substance while waiting for a flight. As usual,
the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of anti-smoking bullies who refuse to
live in the real world.
- June 27, 2013 at 23:46
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I feel sorry for smokers. They’ve probably bought and paid for every bed
the national health owns with just the taxation for a years amount o fags!
They die young so don’t get much benefit from a state pension and as doctors
don’t bother all that much to save their poor, wretched lives they don’t cost
the NHS that much anyway, so don’t get to use the NHS beds they buy. The
steady drinker of alcohol however does far better. I don’t mean the alcoholic,
I refer to those who steadily drink a glass or 2 each evening and suffer from
all sorts of illness. They get pissed and abusive on flights, they are boring
beyond description and are treated very well at the hands of the NHS. As are
drug abusers, PC called substance dependent, who will take the pennies from a
dead man’s eyes and rob their gran for their next fix. The junkie and the
drinker costs the tax payer far in excess of the smoker and makes a lesser
contribution to taxes, the junkie probably incapable of holding a job down.
Tobacco remains legal within these shores but the smoker becomes ever more
marginalised from society and is the modern day leper. If I were a smoker I
wouldn’t stand in a glass box to viewed as some sort of untouchable. I don’t
drink alcohol either and have never taken illegal drugs – but I don’t half
nag! Well, no ones perfect!!!!
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June 28, 2013 at 08:47
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People who drink two WHOLE glasses of wine and get p****d? Those who
drink alcohol not paying huge taxes and therefore contributing to state
finances? You see far more drunk people about in the UK where taxes on
drinks are high then in Europe where you can get a bottle of everyday wine
for <2 euros. I know where I prefer to live and to whose parties I prefer
to attend! I look forward to the day when people are taxed or in some way
punished for being just plain boring otherwise challenged.
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June 28, 2013 at 19:11
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Most wine glasses these days are the size of fish bowls and alcohol
consumption has become a very serious and anti social problem in the UK.
It would seem that when someone choses not to drink they are labelled as
boring. I don’t need to drink alcohol to block out the realities of life.
As for being ‘otherwise challenged.’ yes, life is challenging and that’s
what makes it fantastic because I’m in control of my decisions each day.
The day when hardworking people, who you see as boring, are taxed heavily
arrived many years ago. They are the people who work long hours and are
too bloody tired to ‘attend parties’ after working in excess of 50 hours a
week. Most people are responsible with alcohol but there is an alarming
trend of over consumption and it’s very worrying.
- June 28, 2013 at 19:47
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No I don’t think that all people who don’t drink are boring. Just the
ones proselyting about their own righteousness! I’m very aware of what
makes life challenging. We all make loads of decisions, and I guess I’ve
made more than some, based on my experiences and my age. I really resent
your inference that I’m not hard working (although I am now at 67
retired). I ran companies employing many people for many years (doing
about 60/70 hours a week) and on top of that I did a huge amount of
unpaid pro bono work, winning several awards. After that one often went
out and had fun surviving on about 5 hours sleep for decades. I think
it’s very touching that you are in charge of your decisions- but are you
in charge of your life? Answers on a postcard please! And please do
lighten up!
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June 28, 2013 at 23:51
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Yes I am in charge of my life and there was no inference meant or
given to suggest any thing about you personally. Where exactly did I
infer that? I am also in my 60′s and run a company. I am on my feet
all day and have no plans to retire. As I wrote above I believe that
thousands of people drink alcohol moderately, but there’s no getting
away from the fact that consumption is rising at an alarming effect,
however people who smoke seem to be castigated to a high degree. While
the Government tax tobacco to the hilt on the grounds that it is a
very bad habit alcohol is relatively cheap by comparison, even though
the effects can be just as bad. I don’t believe I am boring because I
don’t drink liquor – I just don’t like the taste of it. I have a good
social life and most of my friends drink – the down is that I am
always the taxi driver. And NO David I am not righteous the very
thought might drive me to drink!!
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June 28, 2013 at 20:46
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An interesting comparison….
A smoker is participating in a legal activity, one which is known to
carry health risks to some, but not all participants, however his
contribution to general taxation is approximately 4 times the cost of
treating any negative health consequences. Notwithstanding that formula, he
will find himself vilified and denied treatment wherever the authorities
think they can get away with it.
As a comparison, participating in legal, unprotected, homosexual anal sex
is known to carry health-risks to some participants but not all, however the
participant contributes no additional taxation whatsoever in pursuit of this
pastime yet, should he fall victim to the defined and widely-publicised
health-risk, the authorities will welcome him into their care and apply no
limits in providing the most extensive and expensive treatments for his
self-inflicted condition.
Queer old world, innit ?
- June 29, 2013 at 01:52
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Mud, you wrote, “participating in legal, unprotected, homosexual anal
sex is known to carry health-risks to some participants.”
Actually, participating in *ANY* sex “is known to carry health-risks to
some participants.” That’s true even within marital sex, since your
partner may have cheated with the postman. And… if you have had more than
one partner in the last six months or year or so you are risking the
health and life of anyone you have sex WITH since you may have contracted
something from the other partner that is still asymptomatic but
contagious. You are also then callously putting the lives and health of
any of their other partners, including perhaps his or her husband and wife
who does not know of their infidelity, at risk, AND… the life and health
of potential not-yet-quite-conceived-children who may contract said
disease months and months from now.
This is something I firmly believe and know to be true, and I act on it
religiously by pleading with all Antismokers to please stop all sexual
activity immediately.
The world will ultimately be better off.
– MJM
- June 27, 2013 at 23:12
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Cheap at the price
Notice in the Holiday Inn Express, Chapel Street, Aberdeen
‘Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005
It is against the law to smoke in any part of this building.
A charge of £200 will be applied to your room account should you smoke or
permit smoking in your bedroom.’
Doesn’t say who keeps the money
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June 27, 2013 at 23:56
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Excellent idea. The money can go towards cleaning the entire room
afterwards to remove the smell which will otherwise linger for ever. But why
not 500 pounds to allow a donation to the NHS too?
- June 28, 2013 at 00:03
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A donation to the NHS Jonathan? Things are a bit different here in the
States, but the figures probably add up to about the same. Read my “Taxes,
Costs, and the MSA” at http://tinyurl.com/SmokingCosts and see if you have any
specific criticisms of it. Smokers pay for the healthcare of NONsmokers —
not the other way around. To be fair, those smoking areas should be
dispensing 5 pound notes to smokers every time they enter!
– MJM
- June 27, 2013 at 22:06
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Handy Tip No 345.
You can just slide the door open if you put your fingers in the small gap
at the jamb.
However, as soon as one of the incumbent smokers saw a fellow leper
fumbling for change, they just pressed the button to open the door and let
them in!
They have an almost identical area in Manchester airport, but there it is
free.
- June 27, 2013 at 22:00
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At least Aberdeen still have a smoking area. The area at Manchester
Piccadilly train station was removed – because staff walked past the area and
the H&S of staff is of the utmost importance, to hell with the passengers
and customers and providing for their needs.
- June 27, 2013 at 21:44
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They’re probably exploring alternative sources of revenue, just in case we
see an independent Caledonia, and they lose the steady income squeezed from
Albion’s hard-pressed taxpayers.
- June 27, 2013 at 21:26
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I doubt that at £1/visit, the initiative could come close to paying for
itself.
The cigarette industry has worked for decades to ensure their product is
the most addictive one on the planet, Surely the tobacco industry’s
heavily-addicted victims would be willing to pay £20 per visit to the room? In
this way, it could have costs and amenities comparable to the £20/visit
airline club lounges: staff to eliminate the fiddlers, nice furniture etc. And
turn a bit of a profit.
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June 27, 2013 at 21:21
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You’re right, the concept is completely out of order. How can we
non-smokers continue to derive our entertainment from seeingat groups of
smokers huddling together against the cold, wind and rain outside their
workplace or pub, like some on-the-run leper colony, when facilities are
provided are being provided for them? Ban these monstrous carbuncles NOW!
- July 2,
2013 at 10:06
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Ban them? Surely we should appreciate these brightly-lit viewing
enclosures that enable us to study smokers at close quarters without
inhaling their noxious fumes. Almost as much fun as a trip to the zoo!
- June 27, 2013 at 20:42
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You can probably get in cheaper by using a one euro coin. They work in most
slots in airports.
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June 29, 2013 at 19:39
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Twenty Centimes is the same size as One Euro, and it works on a One Euro
slot in a supermarket trolly, so it probably works on other slots.
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June 27, 2013 at 20:32
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They have coin operated turnstiles to use the toilets in railway stations,
and no one has a problem with that.
If you are in central London and need
to use a toilet, it is a case of pay twenty pence or let it bake until you get
home.
Or have one in the car park before you check in?
What you should do is
wait for another smoker to turn up, and split the fee, or wait for a smoker
who is in there to leave. Both of you use the door at the same time!
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June 27, 2013 at 20:47
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“If you are in central London and need to use a toilet, it is a case of
pay twenty pence or ………..” Find the local McDonalds.
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June 27, 2013 at 21:21
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It’s 30p(ee\ at Waterloo. Negotiating the steps to the bowels of the
station while others are on the way up and out is treacherous. Once down
there the place stinks; it’s disgustingly foul and only the most desperate
would use these appalling facilities. The are those who seem to think that
it is not necessary to use the toilet basin and just squat on the
floor.
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June 28, 2013 at 19:58
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Walk across to Waterloo East where the toilets are free!
- June 28, 2013 at 09:58
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I’m with Andrew.
You should have a crap in the car park before you check in.
…or have I got my wires crossed here…?
- June 27, 2013 at 19:15
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Yeah, it has to be a joke Anna. £5 would be a ‘normal’ “Airport” rate.
Does their fee include a ‘Tax-free’ fag as well?
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June 27, 2013 at 19:10
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This is the same principle as in some zoos and ” pets corners” where you
pay to go in then buy the food to feed to the animals. Good wheeze.
(literally, in the case of the smokers..)
- June 27, 2013 at 19:09
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Cheap at the price for some good chat and company! smokers are usually very
sociable.
- June 27, 2013 at 18:32
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It’s no joke.
I used this smoking area myself just last week, and I will use it again on
Monday. I’ll use it every time I use the airport. It is a great idea. Yes, in
an ideal world it would be free, but this is the age of “Charge everyone for
everything”.
Already people are ‘fiddling’ the system. I saw one (oil-worker) slide in a
quid and then four of them came into the area.
No doubt it will not stay at a quid a go for long…..
CR.
- June 27, 2013 at 20:07
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And exactly WHAT do they do if you bring a soda in with you? And then
proceed to sit around hippie style on the floor with some of your friends
and drink and party while you smoke? Do they have special “behavior police”
outfitted in full HazMat costumes to come in and drag you and offending soda
away before it gets cancer?
Seriously!
I notice there don’t seem to be any comfortable seats in the area. Is it
designed to accommodate smokers or to punish them?
Ranty, one NICE thing about stuff like this is that it provides a
concentrated area for organizing. Bring a few copies of “The Lies Behind The
Smoking Bans” with you and give them to your fellow smokers to read and pass
onward. Google V.Gen5H and you’ll find the PDF that you can print out.
Also: a question: airport bars and such that still allow smoking have
sufficiently high ventilation/filtration rates that you can usually barely
notice the smoke in them. A quibble I’ve had with airport smoking chambers
that I’ve seen is that they seem to deliberately under-ventilate them.
– MJM
- June 27, 2013 at 21:08
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Now, if you were a regular Monday afternoon flyer with a layover of two
hours in the airport each week, AND if you had a nice iPad type thing to
watch movies on, and maybe a blanket and some cushions that perhaps you
could even store in the airport locker, you could set up a regular social
circle, just like a pub Happy Hour, and watch a different movie with your
group each week! Bring your sodas, bring your hip flasks, and ask them under
just WHAT law they can prohibit you from hydrating yourself as your doctor
recommends while you are sitting around in the smoking area!
There’s also the interesting question of just what would occur if they
insisted you leave the smoking area while you are smoking. They clearly have
no right to take your property from you, and forcing you to put out a
cigarette partway through does indeed take some of that cigarette away from
you. So if they insist you leave the chamber, then it would seem clear you
have the right, acting under their orders to take your lit cigarette with
you. Once you’re outside the chamber they might be able to ask you to
extinguish it, and at that point you probably should do so, as soon as they
direct you to a proper ashtray where it can be safely extinguished and
disposed of without littering.
Btw, have I ever mentioned my airport stats here? Briefly, a single
medium large airport with 500 take offs per day produces the Nitrogen Oxides
pollution (one of the EPA’s signal pollutants, and one of the ones rated
most irritating in cigarette smoke) equivalent, every single day, to EIGHT
AND A HALF BILLION cigarettes. Yes, you read that correctly. And all of
those nice billions of cigarettes worth of pollution are greedily sucked in
by the air pumps and squirted throughout the terminals as “fresh air” for
everyone to breathe.
Nice, eh?
– MJM
MJM
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June 27, 2013 at 18:19
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From Abeerdeen Airport website:
Aberdeen Airport to introduce an airside smoking facility
18 October
2012
More than 400 passengers said they wanted it, while more than 500 gave
their views, and now Aberdeen Airport is preparing to launch an airside
smoking shelter.
At the start of 2012, the airport team kicked off a study
to investigate whether providing facilities for smoking after security would
reduce the number of full terminal evacuations. Many such evacuations are
caused when passengers light up in prohibited areas, activating the smoke
alarms at a cost of thousands of pounds per evacuation.
To assess the
options, a survey was launched. Overall 73% of respondents were in favour of
such a shelter. 96% of smokers supported the project, and importantly even 61%
of non-smokers felt that providing such facilities would be a good
idea.
Since the survey was completed, the teams at the airport have been
working up a plan for where such a facility could be located, ensuring that it
meets all the requirements in legislation regarding smoking in a public
place.
The facility will be in an external airside area, adjacent to the
main departure lounge, and those wishing to use it will be charged £1. That
money will be used solely to support the maintenance and upkeep of the
facility. It is hoped the shelter will be operational in the first half of
2013.
Carol Benzie, the airport Operations Director, explained why the
process has taken so long to get to this stage. “We are very tightly
controlled and regulated as a business, and introducing smoking to an airside
area must bring with it strict controls. We have been working hard to ensure
that we find a location which is convenient for passengers but also ensures we
remain fully compliant.”
“It is important to stress that we have chosen a
location which also provides the best protection for our non-smoking
passengers in the lounge.”
“I am sure that the many passengers who have
been, in the past, caught up in a fire evacuation and re-processing, will join
me in congratulating the teams here for their hard work to reduce the
frequency with which that happens.”
Do they sell cigarettes that you then have to pay extra to smoke? I don’t
actually smoke myself but this is just another example of what Britain has
become. You will soon have to pay a surcharge for NHS facilities if you don’t
fit the profile of their idea of the preferred lifetsyle.. What happens at
Aberdeen if you just have a drag non airside in the open air? No doubt they
will be able to employ some immigrants to enforce this nonsense. Need to get
someone to enforce chewing gum droplets control too of course.
- June 27, 2013 at 22:11
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Strange as it may seem, there is round receptacle inside for the
recycling of used Gum. How and into what that is recycled is anyone’s
guess.
- June 27, 2013 at 23:35
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Want some fun?
Go into one of those pristine smoke-free pubs that have been around
most of the last five years and drop some change near the bar. As you go
down to pick it up, perhaps with the aid of a penlight or light from a
cell phone, glance up at the underside of the “curtain” that a lot of bars
have. I wish I could stick a picture here… I’ve got a beauty: in just one
little section about ten different multicolored wads of old gum stuck
“discretely” up there by those fastidious nonsmokers!
Hmmm… actually, while writing this, it occurred to me that I should
undertake a research project here in Philly where there are still smoking
and banned bars: I bet there are a lot more gum wads ground into little
black splotches in the sidewalks near the banned bars!
– MJM
- June 28, 2013 at 09:23
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@recycling
It’s collected, rolled flat, repackaged and sold as “sugar-free”…………
Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
On the bedpost
overnight
If your mother says don’t chew it
Do you swallow it in
spite
Can you catch it on your tonsils
Can you heave it left and
right
Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
On the bedpost
overnight
- June 27, 2013 at 18:11
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They have the same thing at Belfast International airport within the
departure lounge.
{ 44 comments }