I’m really disappointed with how people have reacted to the “No Smoking ban” in Ireland. There has been a massive increase in the amount of pubs that have built beer gardens and installed patio heaters to keep the punters warm while smoking. While I don’t think there is any problem with having a beer garden,heating the open air in an attempt to keep punters happy is wrong. If people have to go outside to smoke then they should take a jacket with them, or at least wear clothes that keep you warm! In todays environment of global warming, Crazy weather patterns; we should be doing our best to reduce our carbon footprint. Just one pub in Kilkenny has 18 x 2 KW/h bar heaters,which comes out at 36 KW/h Calculating the average CO2 emitted by power stations in Ireland, Approx 650 gram (I used an average of coal 900grams and Natural Gas 400grams). So these heaters would output 21KG/h and this is just for the heaters. If I did the calculation correct :) Depending on the tarrifs obtained from the ESB, ranging from 0.12cent for the first 1500KW/h. It does not take into account the carbon footprint yet!.

I can imagine that as prices for electricity increase, as per the cost of generating electricity pubs will have to look hard at the use of patio heaters, or put up the price of Beer, spirits. which at €4.40 for the average pint in Kilkenny is is getting very costly to have a night out! I think this will be a good thing in the long run as with the cost of heating a smoking area will keep getting more and more expensive, and in times of “recession” we generally watch our wallets.

These are two pubs that have a major use in patio heaters in kilkenny:

Langtons (Gas)

Kytlers Inn (Electric)

The left bank (Electric)

I singled out these two Pubs in Kilkenny because of the amount of heaters that they use to heat their beer gardens. I will add to the list as i find them.