Mitzyboy

Health and Safety in the UK. What people have been doing for years and years in the UK is now banned by a UK council

Mothers taking young children to arranged Coffee mornings are banned from having hot drinks.

Hot drinks ban

fionamw

O M G

amideislas

Yet another example of personal responsibility taken away from us and remanded to the control of overpaid faceless bureaucrats with little else to do but sit around and make up ridiculous laws like this. Are these morons members of EU parliament by chance?

At this rate, I reckon just about everything in life should be technically illegal in about 20 years.

Domino

Well once again slightly biased reporting - it has nothing to do with the HSE, nothing to do with the Health & Safety at Work Act (the only extant act covering H&S) and nothing to do with the EU.

This is another example of someone in a council who doesnt really have a job to do.

It would be interesting to read the Risk Assessment that should have been carried out before issuing the edict. One (brave) mother says they have taken adequat action to ensure there is no danger.

I wonder if the relevent people have considered whether they should be walking round their offices with a cup of coffee in case they should slip, trip or fall whilst carrying a coffee. But then they will be able to claim time off work with full pay and get £100,000 damages.

It is a pity the organisation(s) concerned are holding their days at council run premises, if they werent there wouldnt be all this fuss

Mitzyboy

If we all went to these lengths then we would all be lost!!!!
For so long people have been happily having their coffee mornings and enjoying them. Now this. Will it be an offence to drink coffee in your own homes soon? Will anything with any form of risk be outlawed????

We all know the real reasons for this decision, but that's not the point. The fact that this decision has been made at all is really saddening .... just because someone somewhere has decided that one day they might be sued for selling a cup of coffee to someone.

What about children in cafes. Starbucks and Costa .... should they stop allowing children in their cafes???

lynnxa

heaven forbid they (the councillors) should take a trip to Spain & try to advise all the mums sitting outside the cafes with their coffees & cigs while their kids play in the street

Domino

there have been some successful prosecutions - of Macdonalds IIRC - for burns caused by hot drinks, but at least one of those appeared to be contentious because it appeared to be contrived after press reports
Fancy burning yourself just to get a compensation payment

As I said, show the Risk Assessment, lets see what led someone to make this decision.
Was it a decision that others were too frightened to argue against and it has now got out of hand ?

Any idea where the council's level of responsibility as the landlord in such an incident occurring ?? - apparently unlikely as the coffee is served in those wobbly cups that cannot be knocked over.

Even if it is rescinded, the decision will stay in people's minds as another example of H&S taking over - never an example of an improperly implemented proposal by someone who should know better.
Its from things like this that people get promoted to a level where their incompetence isnt a problem.

I went out for a beer and tapas this lunchtime, perhaps the bar should be forced to use plastic glasses, after all school children were walking past on their way home and I might have dropped it and caused an injury.

jackytoo

Wouldn't be a problem in Spain, the coffee isn't hot enough

lynnxa

perfect drinking temperature

fionamw

What's wrong with that? (caveat cigarettes....bleurgh!)

lynnxa

exactly - I sometimes think Spain is a different world - not just a different country

Dick Dasterdly

You mean just like it is in the States ???

Never anywhere in the World during my travels have I come across so many childish, pointless, petty rules,regulations and restrictions around public locations as I've come across in the USA.

I'm not referring to matters of security, far from it, and in any event long before 9/11 and often involving young kids who hadn't a clue why various jumped up egotistical little hitlers were shouting and bawling at them over the tiniest most harmless triviality which would not even be worthy of a mention anywhere else.

The whole purpose of these guys existance seemed to be to puff up even further their already over inflated egos, as well as stopping harmless youngsters and others who were causing absolutely no one any problems at all, from enjoying themselves.

LAND of the FREE ?.........I DON'T THINK !

What a bloody joke that is.

amideislas

Hmm. well, first, American culture isn't really known for such things (and I certainly have no idea what you're referring to re: hitlers), and yet ironically, European cultures are well-known for their pettiness. For example, just have a look at EU or UK parliament daily topics of debate, most of which are proposals to implement petty laws and regulations which serve no other purpose than to remove responsibility from the individual and transfer it to state control (not state responsibility, but control).

AFAIK, in the US it's legal (or doesn't require any expensive special permit) to open your business or wash your car on a sunday (illegal in many EU countries), it's legal to take a bath or shower after 10:00PM (illegal in Germany and perhaps elsewehere in the EU), it's legal to give someone the finger or call them a moron (illegal in many EU countries), it's legal to evict a tenant from your rental property if they don't pay the rent or destroy your property, it's legal to fire an employee if they don't show up for work, refuse to do their job, or steal from the company, it's legal to have a sack of groceries in the back seat of your car, the police cannot simply stop you and search your car for no reason in hopes of finding "something" to charge you with, and as far as I know, it's also legal to drink coffee in the presence of children.

...to illustrate just a few differences.

Mitzyboy

You've really done your research havent you!
Anything else that is much better in the States?

Rosemary

It may be legal but it is absolute stupidity.

Rosemary