Saturday 28 January 2012

Monty Python Policy-Making Hits The Market Place

No! Don't Look! Gah, too late

The peerless Kate of UK Vapers highlighted a very interesting piece about not only the current rising fortunes of e-cigs (scroll to the bottom), but also the tobacco market in general.

Squirrelled away amongst the comprehensive trade info, though, were these startling - and uncomfortably amusing - couple of paras describing the lengths cash and carry outlets are forced to go to in satisfying the daft tobacco display regulations by April 6th (emphases mine).
But it also looks as if cash and carries are going to have to make significant changes to the way they handle and sell tobacco, with the added complication that the precise rules are unlikely to be published until March, just one month before they are implemented. The FWD intervened on behalf of its members and was given guidance by the Department of Health, and it is expected that cash and carries will have to ensure that only tobacco traders can see tobacco products on their premises.

This will mean that tobacco rooms will have to be equipped with doors and controlled to ensure non tobacco traders do not enter. In addition any tobacco products being moved through depots, whether they are being delivered or they are on customers' trolleys will have to be covered up so they cannot be seen. The guidance was only published shortly before this feature was written, so cash and carries said it was too early to say precisely how they would be dealing with it. One cash and carry boss summed it up as "bags, doors and personnel", and also pointed out that it would mean considerable expense and there was very little time in which to implement the changes.
Stop giggling for a second and picture the scene.

There's your local Makro, or other such entity, building isolation units for boxes of tabs, cigars and tobacco for fear of a food retailer catching a glimpse of an outer of Marlboro. There'll need to be an announcement to 'look away now' when the door opens, of course, to protect anyone tempted to peer inside.

Meanwhile, in the loading bay fork lift drivers - presumably wearing a blindfold - are clambering on the back of artics, draping tarps or blankets over pallets of Hamlet, to ensure someone walking past isn't subject to the life-threatening prospect of seeing the packaging.

On the sales floor, customers are walking around with trolleys groaning under the weight of shrink-wrapped wine gum boxes and baked bean trays, but with the radioactive cig boxes concealed by black bags in case someone who doesn't sell tobacco is infected by baccy-package-itis.

God help the tobacconist who removes his supplies from their church of public health burqa to have a little look! Sirens will sound; rotating red lights will flash; and store staff will come running as if he'd begun letting off acid-laced fireworks. OK, maybe not the sirens and lights, but I'm sure the terror of resultant fines will ensure a sound telling off for any hapless customer who doesn't dutifully comply.

It's all a bit Python-esque, isn't it? Reminiscent of the World's funniest joke sketch ...


... which is quite apt, seeing as this kind of law really is just that. A Westminster joke at the electorate's expense.

As mentioned in yesterday's diatribe, how very pathetic are our politicians that they think we will be enamoured of them for passing such inconsequential nonsense, solely to justify the salaries of a few increasingly hysterical anti-tobacco loons? That none of them feel just a little bit stupid for voting in regulations with absurd consequences like those detailed above? That there is not a flicker of concern for the difficulties - and expense - they have inflicted on traders, and their customers, to satisfy ridiculous hobby horse self-aggrandisement.

Government has become farce. Yet still they're baffled as to why more and more of us can't be bothered to vote for any of them.

Considering Monty Python would probably make more sensible policy than the current set of Westminster clowns, it's hardly a surprise, is it?


21 comments:

Manu said...

This actually made me think of the Medusa scene in Clash of the Titans. Any 2012 remake would presumably have the hero desperately trying not to look at an old crone with nicotine-stained hair, puffing away on a ciggie while clutching a petrifying pack of Marlboro Lights.

Does this legislation still apply once blank packaging is in force...? If it is not the branding that is so Siren-like, is it the dimensions of the box?

Pathetic

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Nice analogy with the Gorgon, Manu.

Yes, I would think it will still apply after the plain packaging idiocy, if it is also passed. Unless they repeal the tobacco display ban, of course, but can you imagine that happening? They still cling desperately to the snus ban despite overwhelming evidence of their incompetence when it was implemented. 

Thomas said...

Sounds like a dirty books store. Maybe they will be required to have private booths one must pay to enter in order to view the naughty packaging. BTW, if by accident, something's not properly covered and I catch a nasty glimpse, will I have the right to sue in court if over time I begin to notice a deterioration of my mental state as a result.

RichardAllan said...

Forklift drivers wearing blindfolds? I can only assume that would be relatively safe as it wasn't covered in Gabelstaplerfahrer Klaus, the fork-lift driver's safety guide.

Guest said...

This is *exactly* like buying alcohol in the UAE

Dick_Puddlecote said...

If you start smoking as a result, you'll have a case. After all, that's entirely the reason tobacco control say the law is required. They might even lend you a solicitor.

Oh, what fun :)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I think it will only apply until the product is safely hidden, but hey, if it's not in the regs, blindfolds will be fine. Common sense long having been discarded in favour of robotic adherence to rules and idiotic dogma, and all that. ;)

stevereynolds1 said...

Tesco in Clacton have already covered their kiosk display with sliding doors, every time a pack of tabs is asked for they have to open the doors and all the shiny treasure is on view. Far more noticeable than they were before!!
This really brought home what a sad, silly little country we have become.

Jaycas said...

Likewise Asda started in January because there are so many displays to be covered.  The manager I spoke to said it's costing them a fortune. 

Mark Wadsworth said...

"Tesco in Clacton have already covered their kiosk display with sliding doors, every time a pack of tabs is asked for they have to open the doors and all the shiny treasure is on view"
Aha! that explains it. I noticed that Tesco in Leytonstone had the shutters down at the fags counter and I was was most baffled, because it was hours before closing time.

Sue said...

I went to the tobacconists in the town where I live in Spain yesterday to buy my usual smokes. The had a huge range of cigarette and bacci holders on the front counter. Really pretty ones for women and kind macho ones with F1 cars on others for men. 

What an amazing own goal this is going to be for the smokerphobes. It's going to make these things trendy (like the mobile covers were for ages)... Kids will be buying fags just so they can carry around the stunning wallets.

John H Baker said...

My local Asda did the same Jacas and the other day a woman was behind the counter checking the new arrangement. She complained that the sliding doors had no springs to shut the sliding doors automatically and told staff to contact head office to have springs put in???

DP your story does not fill me with mirth, good though your piece is. I fear that Cash & Carry's will stop stocking tobacco products because of prehibitive costs in implimenting this fucking daft display ban therefore causing a shortage at the local stores. I figure this has been tobacco control's real agenda all along.

The analogy by one of your commentaters to a dirty book store was the first thing I thought of when this lunacy was first muted.

Bunch a CNUTS, every damn one of them in TC!

John M said...

I wonder if it's possible to replace the cigarette display with a really large TV showing HD security video from all around the premises. How unfortunate would it be if the video "lingered" on the cigarettes out back enabling the consumer to make thier selection?

The "we need to build a cage" argument is a canard BTW as nearly all companies which sell booze & tobacco store it in a secure cage already (to stop it being nicked)

mrs.raft said...

I might buy some of the wallets, if they are any good for makeup etc, just to annoy them.

Is this really what the post-war edifice of human rights and liberty has degenerated to? Armies of numpties on the public dosh doing pretendy jobs.

mrs.raft said...

no springs to shut the sliding doors automatically

Has this silly woman never heard of H&S.  You don't put automatic sliding doors in without a great deal of thought and sensors to stop people getting their fingers, ties, noses cut off when they fail to remove their head or hands fast enough.

John H Baker said...

mrs.raft H&S is a joke, just ask Belinda from the F2C (Scotland) blog. She highlightged that H&S have NOT classed SHS as a workplace safety issue? Why, when all these fake charities who run our politicians say SHS is more deadly than Sarin gas!

Listened to local North East politics this morning and one health bod was asked: "We have tackled smoking now isn't it time we tackled alcohol and fast food and hit them with legislation?" Of course I need not tell you what the health bod said eh.

nicholas.ashley1 said...

At least Monty Python was sometimes funny. This just pathetically silly. What an utterly stupid piece of legislation.

Milton Keynes Hater said...

There are much bigger idiots than the MPs and their Leveler fellow
travellers,
the complete braindead,pathetic,brainwashed ,tosspot,toerag,feeble minded,comotose jerkoffs who vote for them,any of them.
As long as 55-60% of the clowns give them an X every 4-5 years they will
continue to drag the Nation into a Neo Marxist nightmare.
Pointless anyone whinging,bleating,moaning and groaning ,twittering and bloggering if they then go and vote for the same again   

non sum dignus said...

There are much bigger idiots than the MPs and their Leveler fellow
travellers,
the complete braindead,pathetic,brainwashed ,tosspot,toerag,feeble minded,comotose jerkoffs who vote for them,any of them.
As long as 55-60% of the clowns give them an X every 4-5 years they will
continue to drag the Nation into a Neo Marxist nightmare.
Pointless anyone whinging,bleating,moaning and groaning ,twittering and bloggering if they then go and vote for the same again   

non sum dignus said...

There are much bigger idiots than the MPs and their Leveler fellow
travellers,
the complete braindead,pathetic,brainwashed ,tosspot,toerag,feeble minded,comotose jerkoffs who vote for them,any of them.
As long as 55-60% of the clowns give them an X every 4-5 years they will
continue to drag the Nation into a Neo Marxist nightmare.
Pointless anyone whinging,bleating,moaning and groaning ,twittering and bloggering if they then go and vote for the same again   

Dick_Puddlecote said...

We get the point, MKH ;)