The Stage

Death rates escalate anti-smoking battle

Published Tuesday 1 June 2004 at 09:15 by Sally Bramley

Entertainment unions have stepped up their fight against smoking in venues such as pubs and clubs after new statistics revealed that one pub, club or restaurant worker dies every week from passive smoking.

Reacting to research presented to the Royal College of Physicians, both the Musicians’ Union and the Club and Institute Union have said they are encouraging members to seriously look at health and safety issues, with the CIU suggesting venue operators should have no-smoking rooms as well as a 6ft exclusion zone around bars and possibly stage areas.

Figures presented to the RCP by Professor Konrad Jamrozik of Imperial College London showed that passive smoking at work is estimated to cause 49 deaths each year in hospitality industry employees - twice as many as from domestic exposure. He calculated the figure from the number of employees in the industry, their exposure to tobacco smoke and their likely risk of dying as a result.

Professor Jamrozik also found that environmental tobacco smoke in the work place generally causes about 700 deaths a year in the UK. Under the 1974 Safety at Work Act, employers must provide and maintain a working environment that is, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe without risks to health.

General secretary of the CIU Kevin Smyth said he had already met with government officials over no-smoking issues and had been told clubs need to start implementing their own policies regarding smoking in the workplace.

He added: “They were fairly strongly of the view that the hospitality industry needs to be doing more. Whether clubs and pubs can do it is another matter. But as it is an employment issue they have to do it and we are encouraging clubs to start the process now.”

In addition, a survey carried out by independent consumer analysts Mintel discovered, out of a survey of 1,500 people, that a little more than half of British adults favoured a total ban on smoking in public places, a total which included 29% of those who smoked.

Earlier this year, the Irish government imposed a ban on workplace smoking affecting pubs, clubs and theatres. In the UK theatre industry, many venues operate voluntary non-smoking policies, with 90% of all premises owned by the Ambassador Theatre Group and nearly one in four of Clear Channel Entertainment’s venues having a complete ban.

Pauline Dalby, health and safety officer at the Musicians’ Union, welcomed the research and said: “Quite a large percentage of our members will be spurred on by this. We have a very large number of freelance members and they can turn up on an evening and have to work in unacceptable conditions because if they don’t, they don’t get paid. But it could be one of us who dies. There are people who work on the gig circuit every day, every week. Our members could become part of these statistics.”

Dalby said the union had been working with the Trades Union Congress to campaign against smoking in the workplace but needed members to take the line on the issue and refuse to work in smoky environments.

She added that musicians had become more mindful of the dangers of working in unhealthy environments over the last ten years, since Roy Castle was a victim of lung cancer contracted through passive smoking in clubs.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ lobby group FOREST said other independent research had shown only a minority of people supported a total ban in pubs and restaurants. “Given the option, people overwhelmingly want choice, not a blanket ban. The Mintel report doesn’t change that.”