The Guardian

London, March 27:

The first barman to sue over the effects of passive smoking is to go to court in a case that could trigger a multi-million pound compensation bill for Britain’s pub trade. Lawyers believe it could set a legal precedent, paving the way for similar clai-ms against UK’s 60,000 pubs.

The case involves a bar worker in the city of Nottingham, central England, who developed severe breathing difficulties. His lawyers believe these stemmed directly from his working in a pub. Central to the action are allegations that the bar’s owners were negligent in protecting staff from exposure to smoke. Tom Jones, a partner at Thompsons solicitors, which is pursuing the claim, said his company has received scores of further potential claims from pub staff. All allege that their health has suffered from working in a smoky environment. Thompsons’ actions have alarmed Britain’s pub owners, who employ around a million staff. It recently wrote to major pub chains warning of potential litigation if they failed to protect staff from smoke. “It would be a foolish employee not focusing upon passive smoking, but if pub owners continue to ignore the issue they will increase the chances of claims succeeding,” said Jones. JD Wetherspoons has announced that smokers would be barred from the chain’s 650 pubs by May 2006.

Legal experts already believe it is the prospect of legal action rather than concern for the health of employees that is driving moves to introduce better ventilation and ‘no-smoking areas’. If the Thompsons case is successful, pubs might voluntarily opt to ban smoking before the government introduce its own ban, which only applies to bars serving food and will not come into force until 2008. The compensation claim places the industry in a further dilemma amid evidence that bars lose takings if smoking is banned. Pubs in Ireland are believed to have lost 15 per cent of sales since smoking was outlawed a year ago. However, mounting evidence that passive smoking is harmful and could lead to premature death and is a significant cause of disease such as asthma appears to be forcing the issue. Last May, researchers at Imperial College, London estimated that one current or former pub worker a week may die prematurely because of exposure to second-hand smoke at work. The total number of deaths from workplace exposure across the UK is now put at about 700 a year, three times the number of deaths from all industrial injuries.