No Smoking

From this week's 'Church Times'.

Churches are told to display no-smoking signs
by Rachel Harden

The Department of Health confirmed this week that churches would have to display no-smoking posters near their entrances after 1 July, and that clergy will be responsible for implementing the new ban on smoking in public places. But it stressed that churches would be not be targeted by officials checking on implementation, and they would be free to create their own notice.
“We are not specifically sending religious buildings packs of information,” a spokesman said. “Any public place will receive one of our information packs around Easter time, and one of the instructions is that a no-smoking sign must be put up near any entrance. But this can be done discreetly, and it will only be A5 size.”
The spokesman acknowledged that smoking in church had always been a rare event. But he said that the new ban meant that the incumbent would be responsible for the place of worship, and the individual smoker would not be fined.
“Basically, if there is smoking in a public building, like a church, over a continued period of time, then the person responsible for that building might incur a fine.”
A Church of England spokesman said that discussions were still going on with the Department of Health about precisely how and where the signs would have to be sited. But he did not see it as a big problem. “It may be more relevant to church halls, but, generally speaking, smoking is not a big issue in churches and cathedrals, although of course we would not want the signs to be obtrusive.”
Churches in Wales have already been sent information, as the ban comes into force there on 2 April.

Comment

I have never really smoked or even wanted to but my daughter has been hooked since a teenager and is once again struggling to stop. I hope she makes it this time. Her incentive is a family trip to America commencing this Wednesday when she would be the only smoker travelling with three former smokers.

As a teenager myself I recall an incident in which on the chapel steps immediately after the Sunday morning service a number of my pals lit up. A bible thumping relative on his way home from the local gospel hall, black bible firmly tucked under his arm, crossed the road and came up the chapel steps to confront my pals about the un-christian nature of their habit. "If the Lord had intended you to smoke" he said "he would have provided you with a chimney out of the top of your heads". Retracing his steps he left us with that profound gem of wisdom to ponder at our leisure.

My father had a pit accident in which a piece of hot steel entered his eye. As he was brought up from underground and transported to the nearest city hospital a nurse offered him a cigarette.
He lost the eye but always remembered the angel who sort to ease his pain.

Smoking is clearly an addiction which most people will want to conquer but I hope we shall not become over sanctimonious or legalistic in our attempts to stamp it out. After all we are happy for the government to benefit through the large sums of tax revenue it provides. We must be tolerant with the weaknesses of others. I suspect we all will have some of our own about which we are less than proud.