The Good Vaper’s Guide to Pubs
The year was 1994.
In the corner of my local pub, in easy reach of the long bar, the old locals sat in their designated seats. Around them hung a haze of smoke. The carpet, the ceiling and the mats were stained a faint yellow brown and, whether you were a smoker or not, you would come home reeking of stale tobacco.
Fast forward 3 decades, and things are very different.
First, like so many other good pubs, that particular establishment has gone from a thriving - and beautiful - community hub to an empty building with smashed windows and missing roof tiles.
I’m fortunate to have other local pubs around, and, although the haze of smoke has gone, many of those old locals have returned. But, instead of continuing to puff on their cigarettes, the vast majority now vape.
Vaping has been a boon locally. Firstly, many local smokers are now enjoying their nicotine in a way that the UK government reckons is 95% less harmful than cigarettes. Many should live longer as a result (assuming their livers don’t give way first, of course!)
Secondly, it’s been great for pubs, who can retain (or bring back) their nicotine-using customers. And that’s important, not just for economic reasons, but because in a country gripped in an epidemic of loneliness pubs provide a place for real connection between people who would never otherwise meet.
So with all that in mind, I wanted to highlight some basic guidelines for those of you who both drink and vape, with the hope that it will help you avoid some of the trickier situations I’ve found myself in over the last 16 years.
Know the rules: First, vaping is (currently) legal in pubs
Yes, some people do think vaping is illegal in pubs, so be ready to politely point out they’re wrong.
The truth is, some landlords do ban vaping, but that’s up to them. It’s also possible (and more reasonable) that vaping will be banned in some parts of the pub (say the dining room) and not in others.
But do check first
If you have a local, chances are you already know if vaping is allowed.
When you’re travelling, though, things are not as clear cut.
A glance around a pub will usually let you know if there are any other vapers, but if not it’s worth asking for permission. If the person is unsure, you can show them your vape and let them know you will be discreet while using it.
(Several times I’ve been told it’s fine to vape as long ‘as you’re not using one of those blasted cloud things’. More on that below!)
Learn the chains which ban vaping
In contrast to local pubs, many chain pubs ban vaping. These include:
- Wetherspoons
- Mitchell and Butlers
- Greene King
- Stonegate Pub Company
If you have the option, it’s well worth searching out (and supporting!) the smaller pubs that allow vaping.
If visiting a chain pub is unavoidable, it’s freezing cold outside and you can’t bear going without nicotine while drinking, you might want to try using nicotine pouches as a back-up.
Have the facts at hand - but avoid arguments
It’s inevitable that if you regularly vape in pubs, discussion about what you are doing will arrive. In fact, I’ve been told by someone smoking outside my local pub that vaping is worse than smoking, will cause popcorn lung and fill my lungs with fluid.
While we’ve covered the science of vaping many times in the past, I suggest it’s usually worth keeping things brief and pointing out that the UK government, the NHS, Action on Smoking and Health, The Royal Society of Physicians and other bodies all state that vaping is far less harmful than smoking.
Generally, in my experience, you’ll rarely change people’s opinions, even if those opinions have been formed by reading tabloids.
(And let’s face it, alcohol doesn’t make you more amenable to changing your mind! In fact, I’ve walked out of a pub and chosen to drink in the beer garden instead rather than get into a beer-fuelled argument over whether it’s okay to vape inside.)
It is, however, useful to be able to defend vaping when you discuss it with people who haven’t made up their minds.
Blow down!
In general, vaping does not set off smoke alarms as easily as smoke does, and I’ve only known it to set off an alarm in a pub once.
(My drinking companion, who had a vape mod, got the blame and the dressing down, but to be fair it could easily have been me!)
That said, if it does happen it’s very embarrassing, and won’t endear you to the landlord or other customers.
There are simple pointers to avoiding setting it off. Note where the smoke alarm is, try to avoid sitting too close to it and ensure you exhale down rather than up. (Yes it’s basic, but it’s also easy to forget…especially after a few drinks!)
That also leads us to the choice of device and e-liquid…
Use the right device and e-liquid
Increasingly, vapers tend to use low-powered devices which don’t produce huge clouds of vapour. So for most of us, that makes this advice a bit irrelevant.
However, if you do still prefer large mods and high VG e-liquid, this is one place not to use them!
Powerful vapes and high VG e-liquid produce large clouds of vapour which annoy people, hang for longer in the air and are more likely to set off an alarm.
What’s more, while the landlord may be okay with you vaping, it’s best to be discreet to avoid annoying other visitors, especially if you have lots of annoying tourists who may not be familiar with your pub’s vaping policy.
Even if high-powered devices are your go-to choice, for pubs you’ll want a backup device such as a lower-powered starter kit combined with an e-liquid with a VG:PG ratio of something like 50:50. (You can go higher on the PG, but not on the VG.)
I currently use the Vaporesso Xros 4 Nano in pubs, but a prefilled pod device like the IVG Air 4in1 would do the job too.
An under-threat benefit
Unfortunately, pub vaping could be under threat.
Some of the talk leaking from the government has been around banning smoking in pub gardens, which is such a ridiculous overstep of regulation and legislation that even The Guardian is criticising it.
Needless to say, the idea has rapidly spread amongst prohibitionists, who are now suggesting that vaping should also be banned at least in pubs and maybe in pub gardens.
Which reminds me that there is one key difference between the pubs when I was young and now - there were far fewer children in pubs then, and a drinking session was rarely interrupted by screaming babies. The increasing proliferation of children in pubs allows prohibitionists to argue that even vaping in pubs exposes children to nicotine use, and thus ‘normalises’ vaping.
So I suggest that, instead of banning vaping in pubs, we should ban children. Then we can have the pleasure of both enjoying nicotine and enjoying some peace from noisy toddlers.