Can working men’s clubs survive the smoking ban?

Posted by on August 28th, 2007 at 02:00pm

In the early 1970s there were over 4,000 working men’s clubs in Britain. Today that number has halved to about 2,000. Recent hikes in the cost of gaming and drinking licences and loss of custom owing to the comparative cheapness of supermarket beer means that many of those that remain are struggling to make ends meet. Kevin Smyth, general secretary of the Club and Institutes Union, estimates that ‘a further 200 could have their fingers prised off the ledge’ as a direct consequence of the smoking ban.

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Anecdotal evidence indicates that takings have already fallen dramatically in some clubs. ‘It’s too early to tell at the moment how it’s going to go, ‘ says Mr Smyth, ‘but I certainly am worried about the future.’ The lack of a welcoming electric light in the doorway made me wonder whether the Custom House Working Men’s Club had folded already. After a while, however, the door opened revealing a young barman smoking a cigarette. ‘Can I come in?’ I said. ‘I’ve come to see how you’re all coping with the smoking ban.’ The barman shrugged and walked away.

Inside the club, Tammy Wynette was making her heartfelt plea for ladies everywhere to stand by their man. In one half of the room about 30 people were playing bingo. In the other half the tables and chairs were deserted.

But the double fire doors on this side of the room were propped open and in the dark and narrow alley outside an elderly couple were seated at a makeshift table, smoking. A notice on one of the open doors warned against walking up and down the alley ‘as no manhole covers’. I took my pint out and asked this couple what they thought of the smoking ban.

Keith answered with a question of his own.

‘What did your grandfather fight for in the war?’ he said. ‘Freedom? Democracy? And what have we done with it?’ And did he know, I said, that the first modern nationwide smoking ban was imposed by the Nazis? It applied in every German university, post office, Nazi party office and military hospital. Major antismoking campaigns were a regular feature of the Third Reich until Hitler shot himself in the bunker, immediately after which his staff gratefully lit up. It didn’t surprise him, said Keith. And now we’re going down the same road of state-enforced behaviour modification. ‘We’ve even had freedom of speech taken away from us, ‘ he said dejectedly.

‘Here, have one of mine.’ Keith was retired, though from what he didn’t like to say. He showed me a tiny novelty tin ashtray on an extendable chain attached to one of the buttons of his braces. (His wife proudly showed the same. ) They live in Barking, he said. Since 1 July a so-called street warden has been patrolling Barking High Street issuing an on-the-spot £80 fine to anyone he sees dropping a dog-end on the pavement. ‘The place is knee f–ing deep in take-away cartons and this black man is walking up and down slapping fines on old age pensioners for chucking away cigarette butts!

It’s a f–ing liberty, ‘ he said, the emphasis heavily on the swear-word.

The alley suddenly filled with cheerful, chatty, swearing, smoke-breathing women high on bingo. They were on a fag break between cards. So many of us were now crammed in the dingy alley, the last few to arrive had to barge their way in and one of these accidentally kicked my pint over.

Lighter flames flared in the darkness. Could I detect a comically conspiratorial undertow, as if word had quickly got round that there was a bloke on the premises that no one had seen before asking questions about the smoking ban and so they’d better do things by the book until he left? A quick survey revealed that these dedicated bingo-playing smokers thought, like Keith, that the smoking ban was ‘a right f–ing liberty.’ When they’d finished their fags and gone back inside for the next eyes down, Keith said, ‘You won’t catch me sitting out here in winter, oh no. I look at it this way. In here ten quid gets me four drinks. At the supermarket ten quid gets me ten cans that I can drink at home in the warm. No contest really, is it?’ ‘Not when you put it like that, ‘ I agreed.

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