BBC News
Huddles of street smokers outside office doorways could be extinguished under new public health plans. But it could also be the end to the comradeship of pavement puffers.
Christopher Skorus has bad dreams about pavements covered in cigarettes. The Polish street cleaner who patrols the streets of the City of London spends his days clearing up the discarded butts of workers and pub-goers.
"Offices are a problem," he says, pausing to sweep up a small mountain of used cigarettes outside the front door of a five-storey office block. "I clean the street and half-an-hour later it's full of cigarettes."
 The stuff of nightmares... for street cleaners at least |
In his native Poland the police are watching - you get a £10 fine for dropping one on the street. Perhaps the same should happen here, he suggests. "People have no respect, it's a mentality. In the morning the street is white with cigarettes."
Workers puffing away nearby argue that since the smoking ban in England was introduced in July 2007, they have little choice but to huddle conspiratorially in doorways. The ban meant the end of office smoking rooms and the death of ash trays in the pub, forcing workers and drinkers on to the pavement to get their tobacco fix.
Now to their horror the government looks to be going further still.
Announcing a review of smoking legislation in England, Health Secretary Andy Burnham said the public ban could be extended to places such as the entrances of buildings to prevent the risk of second-hand smoke.
The effect would be to disperse those huddles of smokers who have become a common sight in recent years.
Britain would not be the first to try to control clouds of smoke near entrances to buildings. The US state of Illinois bans smokers from standing within 15ft of the entrance to a public building while in Moscow the limit is 20ft.
"Define entrance? It's ridiculous," says Ollie Barrett, an insurance broker outside his office, grinding a cigarette under the sole of his shoe.
His colleague and fellow smoker Richard Hancock puts it more vehemently.
"Whether it's outside the office or the pub or restaurant we're all lepers and persona non grata now. Where I live you have all the undesirables standing outside a Wetherspoons pub, smoking and drinking. It's not something you want your kids to have to walk past. They'd be better off inside but that's the smoking ban for you."
But just a few feet away, another smoker is remarkably receptive - believing the ban could work where his willpower has failed.
"It's a good idea," says Tony Dempsey, who runs a building services company. "It's not pleasant to see people outside entrance smoking. They should have a total ban - it might help me give up!" Read more...
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