Smoky pubs snub customers with disabilities

Pensioner battles discrimination as backlash rises 

Pubs are being warned of a legal and consumer backlash if they continue to deny smoke-free areas to customers at risk from passive smoking.

Health groups are accusing the Australian Hotels Association and managers of smoky pubs of turning their backs on the millions of Australians with heart disease, diabetes, asthma and other conditions worsened by exposure to tobacco smoke toxins.

One of many such people, John Darcy, 64, an invalid pensioner from Western Sydney, is set to take on his local pubs in a campaign for smokefree space. Mr Darcy is short of breath following a heart attack in 1994, and can’t visit his local pubs to “have a drink and play the pokies” because they’re full of tobacco smoke.

Mr Darcy believes he and many others with health problems are being “ignored and discriminated against” because pubs are refusing to ask smokers to light up outside.

Says Anne Jones, CEO of ASH Australia: “These hotels are not only ignoring their legal duties under disability discrimination and OHS to provide safe public places; they’re also ignoring the economic evidence - more than 30 studies showing bans are good for business.”

See  www.vctc.org.au/tc-res/Hospitalitysummary.pdf

“More than half a million Australians currently suffer from heart disease and are at risk if exposed to tobacco smoke toxins – particularly in hospitality venues” adds Maurice Swanson, Co-ordinator of the National Heart Foundation’s Tobacco Control Program. “We’re warning them to avoid smoky venues, as passive smoking will worsen their condition.”

Health groups are calling on hotels to end discrimination against non-smokers and people with disabilities by requiring people to smoke outside, as they now do in 90% of workplaces. “If they don’t,” says Anne Jones, “they’re ignoring their legal obligations - as well as the preferences of nearly 80% of Australians who don’t smoke plus a few million with disabilities made worse by  tobacco smoke toxins.”  

Refer statistics at  www.aihw.gov.au/publications/health/ah00/ah00-c02b.pdf  (see p.9, Table 2.5)

“Hotels need to decide who they’re putting first – their staff and customers or their tobacco sponsors Philip Morris and British American Tobacco (Australasia).”

Comment:   Anne Jones, ASH   ph. (02) 9334.1876 or 0417 227879

Media info:   Stafford Sanders       ph. (02) 9334.1823

John Darcy and Maurice Swanson are also available for interview via ASH

Page last updated on 25/2/2002