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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. |
