PICT0041, originally uploaded by jez s.

Eye was delighted to see the 'No Smoking' signs put up in the courtyard and first floor balconies of Friends House last week. The offices of the Friend have long been blighted by the smell of smoke rising up from puffers down below, so the ban is most welcome by staff at the Friend who like to keep their windows open.

Although the courtyard is not an 'enclosed space', it was decided that banning smoking there would prevent Friends House restaurant from becoming an attraction to smokers in search of a place to eat and smoke outside. There are, apparently, a shortage of such places in the Bloomsbury area and the fear was that Friends House might have become a smokers' haven.

The other consequence of the smoking ban is that Meeting Houses across the land are now adorned with bright red, white and black 'No Smoking' signs, where before smoking simply didn't happen inside.
Of course, while the ban in England is new, it was introduced in April in Wales and in March 2006 in Scotland.

Tom Nisbet of Edinburgh Friends Meeting House assures Eye that the ban makes little difference in practice, but he does have words of caution for us: 'Looking outside my window I see too many cigarette butts on the floor outside. People congregate on the street outside the Meeting House because it has arches which people use to shelter from the wind and rain,' he says.

Labels: bloomsbury, friends house, smoking, smoking ban