I love the nanny state, but let’s leave outdoor smokers to puff away in peace | Martha Gill

There are plenty of laws against the habit, but the ban-it-harder brigade don’t know when to stop

Have you ever wondered why pubs in Britain bother with gardens? They seem like a solid enough investment now, in summer, sure. But what’s the draw for the other 10 months of the year, as rain howls sideways under the awning and the only heater is on an automatic timer, meaning you have to get up to press the button every 10 minutes? How does the maths of that work? I’ll tell you. Smokers.

Smokers keep pub gardens going. A garden, for a smoker, is still a lure in winter. It’s thanks to smokers, keeping their long watch over the slimy benches and inadequate parasols in the dregs of the year, that the rest of us get to pretend, in July and August, that we live in Spain. But now we hear smokers are to be moved on – even from the pavement outside, even from nightclub smoking areas – into the shrieking tundra of “somewhere down the street”, where they will presumably have to stand in single file, out of the way, as pedestrians try not to look them in the eye.

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