Another smoking ban perspective in the Sunday edition of the Tribune.

Those readers who have taken a side in the great smoking debate probably won’t change their minds after reading this Sunday guest column in the Tribune, but I found it refreshing to see a European perspective in our local newspaper.

Why so slow to ban smoke? New resident wonders what’s taking so long to approve the bans, by Aidan Kelly, local guest columnist.

Ireland became the first country in Europe to totally ban smoking from the workplace — including pubs and restaurants — in March 2004 and was also the first in the world to bring in a nationwide ban. There were a couple of exceptions but they wouldn’t be places considered by most to be too much fun to hang out in — prisons and mental hospitals among them.

While owners now talk of closed pubs and lost jobs, the Irish public and bar workers talk of good health and cleaner air.