Vintners to warn Martin against planned smoking ban
The Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), which represents 6,000 pubs outside Dublin, will use the gathering in Letterkenny to send a strongly worded warning to Health Minster Micheál Martin that his plan for a total ban on smoking in all pubs from January 1 next year will not be worth the paper it is written on.
VFI chief executive Tadg O’Sullivan has already dismissed the plan, announced four months ago, as “unworkable, untenable and unenforceable”, and said only a much softer proposal involving limited pub numbers or restricted areas within pubs could be entertained.
If no compromise is forthcoming, however, the federation has sought advice about going down a legal route to block the enactment of the legislation and will be outlining to members how best to protect themselves from prosecution if the law comes into effect as envisaged.
The smoking ban is one of a number of issues that have created a mood of militancy among publicans who are feeling increasingly under attack in the current climate of public anger at drink-related problems in society.
Remarks by President Mary McAleese about what she termed the “burden of misery and malaise” caused by alcohol abuse in the last week have put a renewed international spotlight on the dominance of drink in Irish culture.
Public outcry over drink-related violence on the streets, and complaints by the medical profession that up to half the cases brought to overcrowded casualty departments after midnight are the result of drink, have heightened feelings on the subject.
The two-day conference, which begins today, is also the first full meeting of the federation since the controversial ban on admission to Travellers by members in County Mayo last summer.
The VFI wants equality legislation used by Travellers to take court actions on discrimination grounds amended to protect publicans against what they say are excessive, vexatious claims.
Members also want to reclaim the right to refuse access to customers with children in the evenings or in other exceptional circumstances.
They argue the law means they must serve an inebriated parent in the company of a child in case the adult complains of discrimination.
They will also repeat their long-running demand for mandatory, tamper-proof identity cards to be issued to all under 18s, and for the law to be changed to make presenting a faked card a crime, rather than failing to detect a faked card.
Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, who attends the conference as special guest tomorrow evening, will steer clear of delivering exact details on how the smoking ban will be implemented but a federation source said she would be left in no doubt about the strength of feeling among members on the issue.
The source said publicans were tired of taking the rap.
“There is a feeling of being fed up of politicians and the public always laying the blame at the door of publicans who are just a part of society like everyone else.”
