Environmental health officers (EHOs) do not have the relevant skills to police a smoking ban, hospitality industry figures have warned.
Senior figures in the profession fear that EHOs, which also have additional responsibilities under the new licensing act, are being asked to do too much with too little.
The Local Government Association (LGA) agreed, calling the government’s proposed partial ban “contradictory, complex and unenforceable”.
“Under the current proposals, EHOs would issue penalty notices to customers or owners that broke the ban, but this is not part of their regular job so they would need extra training and funding,” said a spokesman for the LGA.
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The British Hospitality Association (BHA) is holding talks next Monday with EHOs and other industry representatives to push for a complete ban.
“It’s only the pub trade that is opposed, but this is about people at work and should not be derailed by them as it is a bigger issue than that,” BHA chief executive Bob Cotton told Personnel Today‘s sister publication Caterer and Hotelkeeper.
