Hotel owner prosecuted for smoking on her own premises

[The Straight Story]

Hotel owner prosecuted for smoking on her own premises
A hotel owner has been prosecuted for smoking a cigarette in her property while nobody else was there.


By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 1:19PM BST 07 Aug 2008

Patricia Coupeland was given a 12 month conditional discharge by Blackpool magistrates after she admitted smoking on a smoke-free premises.

Ms Coupeland, 50, of the Cheers Hotel in Blackpool, told a court the hotel was closed at the time and not taking in guests.

She said: "I was in the dining room doing my paperwork and having a cigarette. It was closed as a hotel at the time and was therefore my private home. There were no guests. I only had a friend stay. The health officer came across as vicious and a person with attitude."

Victoria Cartmell, prosecuting for Blackpool Council, told the court that on February 1 environmental health officer Alan Taylor arrived at the hotel to carry out a hygiene inspection.

She said: "The defendant returned from the kitchen with a cigarette which she continued to smoke in the bar area.

"The defendant confirmed it was a smoke-free hotel, but said it was her own home and she was free to smoke in her own home.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2516733/Hotel-owner-prosecuted-for-smoking-on-her-own-premises.html

[DJ13]

1. Why dont they stop the BS and just outlaw smoking if they hate it?

This is going too far.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. That's idiotic. And excessive. And idiotic.

Preemptively, any poster that says anything along the lines of "dem rulez is dem rulez" may consider itself replied to with the sentence "you're an asshole."

[AuntPatsy]

3. Fascist style government anyone? I have no doubt that that could happen

here as well, enough is enough....

smoking bad, cars good, factory waste polluting the air good...sheesh....the hypocrisy and idiocy of those in power sicken me.

[SheilaT]

4. Was it a hotel or her private home?

There seems to be a little slippage here about what it actually is. A hotel, smoke free at that, but her home? I'm a bit confused.

What part of smoke-free did she not understand?

I really, honestly, don't get why anyone smokes in this day and age. It's not as though the news that it's bad for you, and that it makes you stink, is recent.

[Dr.Phool]

5. You're right. You are a little confused.

[seabeyond]

8. i really, honestly, dont get why anyone eats twinkies. they are bad for you and

make you fat. i really, dont honestly, see why anyone lives in big city. the smog is unhealthy for you and make you stink

eat meat
ride motorcycles
drives a car
drinks coffee
eat fast food
not exercise
watch tv
talk on cell phone
drinks booze
has unprotected sex, or even protected sex for that matter since it doesnt stop all disease and guarentee you wont get preg
go to a fuckin airport

and i bet the list can go on and on and on

[Dr.Phool]

11. I'm fucking doomed!

I did every one of those things today. Except I went to the gym instead of the airport. And I smoked cigarettes too.

Maybe I'll go to the airport tomorrow, but I ain't promising.

[seabeyond]

13. wtf.... i would be smokin too. the airport will be the one to take you down

the authoritarians in our lives. god spare me.

[SheilaT]

14. And which one of those kill

some 400,000 Americans each year?

[seabeyond]

15. here and there they all kill. some more and some less. it is life

we make our choices. we gamble every single day

but the arrogant, .... really, honestly, i dont understand....

eeeeew

[SheilaT]

17. There really is a difference between

smoking and all those other things listing. Smoking kills some 400,000 people per year in this country alone. While drunk driving does kill people -- and is totally avoidable and should be prosecuted severely, it and overeating and talking on a cell phone and eating twinkies and everything else like that aren't in the same category as smoking.

Plus, the real essential point is that it was a NON-SMOKING hotel. What a lot of smokers just don't get is that we non smokers really can tell when someone has lit up recently. Or has gone outside and had a smoke and comes back in. Don't think you don't reek of cigarette smoke. You do. You just don't find it offensive, because you're used to it. It's the way you and your home and your car and your clothes smell all the time.

What I'm sick of is the sanctimonious self-righteousness of smokers.

[seabeyond]

19. oh my. a smell. oh lordy, you have to smell a friggin smell. that is horrid, just

shamefully horrid. i say shoot all those smokers, that they have the audacity to have the smell of smoke on them. just too damn bad this world isnt solely yours to live in and all your fellow man doesnt disappear. you have to share.

the horrors.

grow up

and i dont smoke

[Dr.Phool]

30. A smell?

I used to work on a steel mill railroad, and some days I had to sit in a locomotive, without air conditioning, on a 95 degree August day, next to a slag pit, where molten slag had just run out of a blast furnace, for 12 hours a day.

The sulfur smell would burn your eyes and lungs. Smoke, fire, heat, dirt, you name it.

And my boss said they were starting a non-smoking policy. I told him to go fuck himself. The cigarette was cleaner than what I was sitting in.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

20. What I'm sick of is the sanctimonious self-righteousness of certain types of non-smokers

whose personalities stink so bad I get sick to my stomach even being on a discussion board with them.

[seabeyond]

21. these people feel like it is a loss that they dont want to hang with the smoker

i am never going into your home, car, hang with you.... like it is a loss. i wouldnt want to be around anyone so rigid and unaccepting not the kind of people i like to hang with anyway. i like mellow and accepting. not a loss. truly. stay away. who the fuck cares

[eowyn_of_rohan]

33. It is their loss

I have no interest, either, in being in the company of judgmental non-smokers who impose their values on everyone else, under the guise of a public health concern. Incidents of disease from 2nd hand smoke are far less than the number of illnesses and deaths caused by other more pervasive environmental pollutants. What are they doing about that? nothing. They are hateful people. I think they are jealous.;)

[seabeyond]

22. smokers and fat people. our society has gotten the nod that simple courtesy and kindness

is not necessary. further, it is discourage. we have decided as a society we can be as rude, ugly, obnoxious, mean, cruel as we can be with these two groups.

i disagree

i also dont follow mob rule in beating up and cheering it on.

[Ahpook]

24. I am happy for you:)

If this is the only trouble you have in your world, can we change places?

[SheilaT]

27. It never fails to amaze me

that when a discussion of smoking gets started here, the smokers jump all over those who don't want to tolerate their filthy habit. I'm accused of being intolerant, rigid, and hateful when it's the smokers who are literally stinking the place up. And you won't be able to smell me from twenty paces, because I don't make nasty faces or remarks to smokers. The defensiveness of smokers in the face of all the good reasons and societal pressure to stop is pretty impressive.

The surgeon general's report was in 1964. So all the bad effects are not breaking news.

And the origin of this debate had to do with someone lighting up in a non-smoking venue, which as far as I'm concerned is simply typical of the arrogant disregard smokers have for the rest of us.

[Dorian Gray]

31. I'm a non-smoker

and I think you come across as rude about smokers. Especially since now it's pretty easy to avoid smokers and their smoke. (Which I agree smells badly. But I deal with it IF I have to, and most of the time, I don't need to.)

[SheilaT]

32. But, when a smoker

blithely lights up in a non-smoking venue (the hotel that started this whole thing) then it's impossible to avoid them.

And I'm sorry if I come across as rude, but smokers who insist on their right to smoke come across as rude to me.

Too often a smoker defiantly lighting up in front of a non-smoking sign is seen as cute, or appropriately thumbing his nose at mindless authority, but I'm not charmed.

[Dorian Gray]

36. In the article

it said that the hotel was closed and nobody was there.

My MIL smokes, and it drives me crazy. Especially when she asks to do it in my car or my apt. She's one of the rudest smokers out there, but I only deal with her a few times a year, and I just have to suck it up and deal. I already know that when I have children, I'm not leaving them with her or allowing them to be stuck in a car with her.

:)

Most of my friends who do still smoke are considerate in that they always go outside and smoke away from me. I think living in NYC has conditioned them to do so.

Anyhow, we all know that smoking is bad for you. It's really bad, and I would love for everyone to quit. I quit myself years ago, and I've never felt better. I hate to be around smoke now, but I find that it is very very very rare that I am. And if someone were to smoke in an empty hotel, it really wouldn't bother me.

[Joe Fields]

34. There are all types of obnoxious smells in public places.

The smell of cigarette smoke is only one. If I were you, I'd lock myself in my house, turn on the potpourri and never let myself out.

[Occulus]

16. Cannabis doesn't

And more people are jailed per year for that then... weeeelllllll.....

You get my point, I think.

[GoneOffShore]

28. People forget -

The biggest cause of death -
























Is Life.

[seabeyond]

29. yes. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. And I don't understand why fat people continue to eat

It's not as though it isn't common knowledge that there is a strong correlation between overeating and getting fat.

[hughee99]

6. Too bad it's not a consulate.

An English pub is trying to beat the imminent ban on smoking in public places by asking for consulate status from the Peruvian embassy in London, the landlady said Friday.

Debbie Trevithick, from the Peruvian Arms in Penzance, Cornwall, south-west England, said the pub has close ties with the South American country and she has written to Peru's ambassador in London to ask for consulate status.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/English_pub_wants_Peru_s_help_to_be_04272007.html

[Dr. Strange]

7. Well, she can't really have it both ways.

If she wants to claim that it's a smoke-free hotel, then that should include her. The idea that "there were no guests" and therefore it's okay to smoke really invalidates the whole idea of "smoke-free."

[petronius]

25. Frmo the article, it sounds like her private quarters and the common areas are clearly seperate,

and considering that an inspector was coming the hotel was clearly still in business. I really don't see what she has to complain about... :shrug:

[Bobbie Jo]

9. If it were mine...I'd go home a smoke a cigarette in every f*cking room in the place.

one by one! :grr:

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. Consider the source

n/t

[rucky]

12. That would never happen in America.

:dunce:

[TahitiNut]

18. !

:spray: :rofl:

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

23. I wonder which country will be the first to make tobacco illegal?

We're probably not too many years away from seeing the first nationwide tobacco ban somewhere in the world.

[Codeine]

35. Bhutan did, in 2005. nt

[SteelPenguin]

37. Shouldn't advertise as a smoke-free hotel then

I don't believe in smoking bans being forced on establishments, I think it should be a choice of the establishment, however in this case she advertised as smoke-free. When I was a smoker I definitely looked for smoking rooms, or rather avoided smoke-free ones. Now that I'm a non-smoker I look for the opposite.

The acrid ash smell of an establishment where smoking is pervasive is irritating enough to my nose, that I wouldn't want to sleep there. Oh, if it's a bar or something I can stand it just fine, but if I'm going to pay for a 'smoke free' establishment, and try and get some sleep I don't want it to smell like an ash tray. It's not a health consideration, but a comfort one. If the smell doesn't bother you, kudos, but for many people it's a stench as bad as bat guano.