Smoking bylaw question

[PinzaC55]

Eric87 said "If you were a smoker, and your evening had gone from downer to downer, and someone had pushed you so far past your tolerance of crap that your hands were shaking, what would you have done? "

Personally I would have checked how long I had before my train arrived then gone outside the station.

 

[Pex]

The Railway Byelaw which prohibits smoking on those parts of the Railway where signs are displayed was tested on Appeal to the House of Lords.
Please refer to Boddington vs British Transport Police 1977. (Boddington had been accused of smoking, prosecuted by the BTP, fined by the Magistrates, appealed to the District Court, given leave to Appeal to the Lords and lost his Appeal).

The Judgement is particularly interestng, as it considers several points of Law, including the matter of whether or not a Railway Operator has the jurisdiction to prohibit smoking absolutely and how a citizen can ask the Courts to subject Criminal Law to scrutiny when they are also public Law Byelaws).

Thanks for this Dave.
Although it does answer my query inasmuch as the legality of putting signs up that could in fact prohibit anything they like, this case does relate to persitent voilation of a smoking ban in carriages (which is fair enough).
Furthermore the person refused to put the cigarette out.

I still feel that signs have to be truthful and that rules have to be reasonable to be valid (such as in tenancy agreements).

If the sign simply said 'no smoking on these premises' I could accept that. My issue is that they state it is against the law to smoke on these premises, thus implying (wrongly) that the government have made the law that you cant even smoke on the end of an open platform.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

The law is that if the sign is present then it is illegal to smoke on railway property. Therefore the sign is quite correct in saying it is unlawful to smoke. Anything else would be misleading.


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[mirodo]

If a sign at the entrance to a station says, to paraphrase, 'You can't smoke anywhere on this station', would that be enough to ban it either by law, or railway bylaw. In other words, if you were having a fag at the end of an oncovered platform, you still have no defence?

Would a sign at the entrance be sufficient? What about a passenger who had arrived on one train and was waiting for another whilst having a smoke at the end of the signless platform having not seen the sign at the station entrance?

 

[Wath Yard]

Just as well in Scotland (as usual) they came up with a sensible compromise.

A sensible compromise that the vast majority of people seem to respect, unlike in England where they used a sledgehammer to crack a nut and smoking in enclosed shelters is still commonplace on unstaffed stations. It's rather sad that Scotland banned smoking in public places first, and as you say came up with a sensible solution, but when it was replicated in England they opted to adopt an approach purely for their convenience, as usual.

 

[michael769]

Would you be able to stipulate that you be tried by a jury of your 'peers' and bar any non-smokers from the jury for fear of them being prejudiced ?

Nope - no jury!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If the sign simply said 'no smoking on these premises' I could accept that. My issue is that they state it is against the law to smoke on these premises, thus implying (wrongly) that the government have made the law that you cant even smoke on the end of an open platform.

The government did make the law when they signed off on the byelaws. As did parliament when it granted the power to create bylaws.

 

[mailman]

TOCs despite what some would have you believe are very unlikely to take a case like this to Court, as the Magistrates would not be happy to hear one like this.

Besides, the Magistrates have far more important issues to deal with...like dealing with all those tax avoiding telly tax people!

Lets hope the train company has a little common sense and just sends you a harshly worded letter for committing the heinous crime of smoking!

Mailman

 

[455driver]

Once saw a woman smoking on Platform 3 at Woking, now this is a bay platform and is stuck out the London end of the station all by itself and is basically open air, I was changing ends so as I passed her I asked "do you know that smoking is banned on stations", she replied that she was sorry but had just had some bad news to finish off a bad day and would put it out, I said "I didnt ask you to put it out did I" and then stood talking to her while she finished it, no harm done and a (slightly) more relaxed passenger and nobody died.

Oh I am a non smoker as well!

 

[PinzaC55]

Not strictly railway related but in York when the smoking ban started they hired two women to enforce it at something like £25,000 a year each.
One of them wanted to put "No Smoking" signs on the gatehouses in the City Walls as these are more than 50% enclosed. However she was told she couldn't do it as the Walls are classed as "Ancient Monuments" and no signs were allowed to be fixed to them

 

[johnnychips]

Can heritage railways put up heritage 'No smoking' signs, or do they have to put up the ubiquitous red circle with a red bar over the cig?

 

[island]

Can heritage railways put up heritage 'No smoking' signs, or do they have to put up the ubiquitous red circle with a red bar over the cig?

The law states you have to display the symbol plus "it is against the law to smoke ______", where ____ is "on this premises" or some other similar term like "in this shop", etc.

 

[Butts]

Can heritage railways put up heritage 'No smoking' signs, or do they have to put up the ubiquitous red circle with a red bar over the cig?

If they are supposed to be authentic they should have Smoking and Non-Smoking Carriages

 

[mailman]

If they are supposed to be authentic they should have Smoking and Non-Smoking Carriages

Surely if they were being authentic they would just have smoking carriages since everyone smoked prior to the 1970's?

Regards

Mailman

 

[Pex]

The law is that if the sign is present then it is illegal to smoke on railway property. Therefore the sign is quite correct in saying it is unlawful to smoke. Anything else would be misleading.

My point is that the sign invalidates itself but nevermind - I can see that I'm on my own on that one.

This thread has provided some interesting debate and contributions. It also reminds me why I dont use trains as much as I used to.

 

[island]

My point is that the sign invalidates itself but nevermind - I can see that I'm on my own on that one.

Quite the opposite I would have said; the presence of the sign saying smoking is not permitted makes it so.

 

[455driver]

My point is that the sign invalidates itself but nevermind - I can see that I'm on my own on that one.(

pedant mode on}-

Is there a sign there saying I cant whack you over the head with a cricket bat?

No, so you wouldnt mind me doing it then!

-{pedant mode off

 

[ralphchadkirk]

My point is that the sign invalidates itself

No, the sign validates itself.