http://werewatchingyouborissodontscrewthisup.wordpress.com/

Makes sense to me. The profit motive in action, I would say.

I agree. (Is this a first?) It seems wrong to allow the actions of the few to prevent the sensible majority from their simple pleasures. And you’re right that it’s a cosmetic law. I don’t suppose it’s the consumption on the Tube which is the problem so much as the drunkenness, or perhaps the drunk-and-disorderliness, which will best be dealt with by stiffer punishments, I would have thought.

Problems of this kind are knotty. This is why I prefer bottom-up approaches because it allows for the possibility of experimentation by different people. You are much more likely to get to the right answer or answers this way than by hoping that the man in Whitehall will define different people’s rights in such a way as to get to that best set of solutions in a top-down way.

Mmm…. I’m torn you see. On the one hand I’ve drunk alcohol on public transport and not been stupid about it. On the other hand I can see the argument about ‘drunken louts’.

But it won’t solve the issue. This is a cosmetic law…. because you can deal with drunken louts, and other crimes, by increasing the number of transport police and making it more difficult for people engaging in loutish behaviour. For example, if a bunch of footy fans get drunk and then come on the tube, they’d cause hassle but there would be no way to stop them!

There is no conflict between being libertarian, anti the smoking ban and anti drinking on the tube. The common element here is that the property owner (a pub landlord or TFL) should be free to set whatever reasonable conditions they wish, and the government should keep its nose out of this private transaction between the property owner and his customers.

Yes, which is why it’s the licence that’s the important “property” here, not the premises. Anyway, we’re waaaaaaay off topic, I fear.

Okay, we’re not going to agree. The *licence* is the important “property” here; no one, ever, prevents a pub owner from smoking on his/her *physical* property.

They do if he wants to operate the property as a pub!

Okay, we’re not going to agree. The *licence* is the important “property” here; no one, ever, prevents a pub owner from smoking on his/her *physical* property.

@23 Matt

> my local, like all other locals is now full of families during the day, and middle aged couples having dinner in the evening

I can only suggest you move somewhere else, then. My local(s) aren’t like that at all.

@ 24 BH

No, not a flaw in your argument. And I largely agree on state powers etc. Merely pointing out that you’re trying to use 2 arguments on smoking in pub / drinking on the tube.

> If the state demands that one has an ID card in order to be eligible for the NHS, presumably you could argue that there can be no libertarian objection to that either.

No, I’d object that the demand that we all carry barcodes was profoundly illiberal in itself - that to make demands on people who are causing no harm to others was grounds enough to call something illiberal. You *also* want to be able to say that a property owner can set its own rules, even when it’s the government (i.e. BoJo). It’s *your* line of argument that would justify the government putting any conditions it liked on NHS access, not mine. And, yes, knowing your views, I’m damned sure you wouldn’t support that either.

I assume you are pointing out what you see as a flaw in my argument rather than arguing for the state being able to attach any conditions it sees fit to a transaction in which it is (presumably legitimately) involved. This seems to me to be the start of a slippery slope. If the state demands that one has an ID card in order to be eligible for the NHS, presumably you could argue that there can be no libertarian objection to that either. Or perhaps all children should be RFID tagged before they are allowed in to enroll for school? As I say, I don’t think you’re actually arguing this, but it’s worth making the point.

It seems to me that the question of what conditions the state can attach to a transaction is inseparable from the question of what transactions it should be getting involved in in the first place. By all means prosecute people for selling booze to kids, but there’s no need for prior licensing, precisely because of the danger of spurious conditions being attached. This is the great danger to a liberal society of government regulation.

Sunny

My views aside, you don’t seem to be defending your top-down approach to the issue at all. Do you still view a government driven approach as the best one, and do you think this is relevant to your claimed position as a liberal?

But most people don’t go to pubs, and most of the ones that did, smoked. Hence thousands of pubs closing and beer sales down by 24%, not even one year into the ban. On a personal note, my local, like all other locals is now full of families during the day, and middle aged couples having dinner in the evening, to me that is not a pub, it’s a restuarant/coffee bar. No problem with that but there were already plenty of them, so why impose your choices on me ?? Why must everywhere be suitable for everybody ?

Nothwithstanding the argument about ownership/sovreignty (and I disagree that a licence from the state equals state control, a pub is a private business). The flawed logic behind the smoking ban was the assumption that all sections of society use pubs equally when they plainly didn’t, smokers were “overrepresented” among regular pub goers. Now they aren’t, but no -one has replaced them, hence we don’t have pubs anymore, we have resturants with bars.

The fact is this: if the libertarian argument is that the property owner gets to decide, and the property in question is a licence to sell beers, and the property owner puts conditions on the sale of that licence, the there’s no libertarian objection to the smoking ban.

Um no, in this context a property is a pub (or other premises). A licence is a document that allows the holder to do something. Your argument holds no beer.

But banning drinking != banning drunken louts.

It will ban people who aren’t louts but fancy a beer from having one, while doing absolutely nothing to prevent louts who are drunk from causing a nuisance (even if it were actually enforced against groups of rowdy chavs, which it won’t be).

> This begs the question,

No it doesn’t, any more than anything at all I write might beg the question “what is existence?” or “why am I here?”

The fact is this: if the libertarian argument is that the property owner gets to decide, and the property in question is a licence to sell beers, and the property owner puts conditions on the sale of that licence, the there’s no libertarian objection to the smoking ban.

If, however, the libertarian contention is that we should be free to do what we like as long as we don’t harm others, then there’s an equivalent objection to the smoking ban and Boris’s drinking ban. You can’t have it *both* ways.

I’m not sure it works exactly like that. Pubs also have to have licenses, as Donald points out above. So in effect their behaviour is regulated by the state.

On the other hand, they don’t have to go into smoky pubs, clubs and bars if they don’t want to.

Yes but the problem was that if you did go into a relatively smoke-free place, occasionally people lit up next to you and that messed things up again. It is also a health issue rather than ownership issue. Hence why most people approve of the smoking ban. Surprise surprise!

> I stick to my argument that the property owner gets to decide

So, on the smoking ban, what if that property is the *licence* to sell beers, wines and spirits? No one’s stopping anyone from smoking in the building; merely from licensing the property if people choose to smoke there.