PUBS and bars are so badly ventilated that smokers are putting the health of
staff at risk, Irish health officials warn. They are calling on the hospitality
industry to ban smoking in pubs, bars and restaurants.
鈥淲e have to wake up and recognise that ventilation cannot make bars safe
places to breathe,鈥� says Maurice Mulcahy, chairman of the tobacco control group
at Ireland鈥檚 Environmental Health Officers Association (EHOA). 鈥淯nless staff are
going to wear gas masks and protective suits, a ban on smoking is the only
practical way to make them safe.鈥�
Health officials spent 18 months repeatedly visiting 14 bars around the
country to sample the air. As a marker for the amount of cigarette smoke in the
air inside the bars, they measured concentrations of carbon monoxide and
compared them to levels found in non-smoking offices and outside on the street.
They found that pubs often exceeded 60 parts per million of CO. The highest
recorded figure found elsewhere was just 6 ppm on a busy road.
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Questionnaires completed by staff in 66 bars also revealed that bar staff
work long hours, and that for many the job is a long-term career: 40 per cent
had been working in bars for 10 years or more. This puts them especially at risk
from sustained exposure to second-hand smoke, says Mulcahy.
The EHOA recommends that pubs have ventilation systems that exchange the air
at least 12 times a day, Mulcahy says. But while the tobacco industry encourages
businesses to increase ventilation, the pub industry is self-regulating and
there is no enforceable European standard for air quality in bars.
Mulcahy is now convinced that changing the design of pubs and restaurants to
improve ventilation is not the answer. 鈥淰entilation just cannot cope. All it can
do is reduce irritation,鈥� he warns. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not fair on bar staff. The
industry now has to face up to the reality of a smoking ban.鈥�
The British anti-smoking lobby group ASH agrees, saying that making
ventilation in British pubs effective would be too expensive. 鈥淲hen California
brought in full smoking bans we were told it would mean the end of the economic
universe as we knew it,鈥� says spokesman Karl Brookes. 鈥淏ut the world kept on
turning and just as many people kept on going to bars.鈥�