Re: Spite
Most people who don't smoke stopped going to pubs/clubs long before the bans.
Wholly untrue and you must realise that.
I've never smoked. 95% of my mates have never smoked. We used to be in the pub several times a week before the ban. Anti-smokers != non-smokers. Anti-smokers may not have gone to the pub much, but nobody in the pub missed them.
A lot of the pressure to "drink more" has gone away as has the culture of competitive drinking (for the most part).
Among your friends? Probably because you're getting old, like me. Among the young that pressure is every bit as strong as it ever was. Stronger even.
If you want to take a full sample of reductions in alcohol consumption you'll need to do better than selectively taking the smoking ban years and the ones immediately before them, given there's been a steady decline in consumption happening since at least the 1960s and that covers at least 2 other recession cycles.
Cool. State your source and I'll go look.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
