Pub owners revolt

last updated 8 January 2015

Dublin

An association of pub owners said this week that its members intended to defy a new law banning smoking in all workplaces. The law, similar to the one in New York City, won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, but the backlash has already begun. Pub owners said that while they were willing to create a nonsmoking area around the bar to protect the bartender from secondhand smoke, an outright ban on smoking would put them out of business. They vowed to let their customers light up, even if it meant paying a $2,000 fine. “In this country we’ve had 800 years of oppression from a foreign power,” said pub association chairman John O’Sullivan. “Perhaps we might be rebellious by nature.”