Local brewery allows employees to smoke while brewing...

[arnobg]

Would it change your opinion if said cigarette fell into the mash tun and the user had Hep A? Like my previous argument, there's regulations for this stuff for a reason.

 

[yeahfairly]

If the employee has Hep A then the fact that he is working in a food / beverage producing establishment is a bigger concern than whether he smokes a cigarette in the brew house.

 

[Braufessor]

Would it change your opinion if said cigarette fell into the mash tun and the user had Hep A? Like my previous argument, there's regulations for this stuff for a reason.

If a brewer had Hep A...... couldn't he just sneeze while brewing and get the same effect? Or the person serving you the beer having it ...... The idea that a smoking brewer dropping a Hep A tainted cigarette butt in a mash tun is somehow really increasing the odds of spreading Hep A is a tremendous stretch at best.

That said, it seems weird to me that a brewery would want to let the image get out of people seeing them smoke while brewing. It is fairly obvious to me that it is going to turn some people off - so you just don't do it. Especially in a way that is visible to people. Just an obviously bad business move for sure. It is an outright guarantee that it would result in fewer beers sold when people see it happening.

However, the idea that somehow this is a significant health risk to the beer being consumed is ludicrous. I would be more worried about the chemicals used to clean the mash tun, hoses, pipes and fittings not being thoroughly rinsed, or the bartender not washing their hands well enough before pouring you a pint. Or.... well - pretty much a million other things that could "potentially" be a problem. I just don't even see the mechanism by which this travels through the brewing process into a beer and into a consumer. It is just a psychological turn off to customers.... which is more than enough not to do it.

 

[ericbw]

The employer should not be touching his mouth and then touching food he's making. It's very simple.

"But his rights! Everyone is picking on smokers!"

Whatever.

 

[thunderwagn]

For those of you who say it isn't a big deal maybe it isn't THAT big of a deal but answer this for me....


My point being, where do you draw a line then when it comes to public health and regulations to protect consumers? These regulations are there because the people consuming the products need this protection, without it there's no telling what would be in things you're consuming. I can see that OP's point and if he had never seen what he saw, it wouldn't be fair to a consumer to be drinking something that may have ashes in it unknowingly.

We All Need More Protection!!! We Are Not Capable Of Protecting Ourselves!!
MORE REGULATION!! MORE REGULATION! :rockin:

 

[corkybstewart]

would anyone eat at a restaurant if they saw the chef's smoking in the back while cooking the food?

There used to be a cafe at the edge of our town that served the best burritos in town(we eat a lot of burritos here). I went in one day and ordered something and watched the girl make my burrito-she had 1/2 inches of ash dangling at the end of her cigarette. It didn't fall in my burrito that day but I never went back.

 

[corkybstewart]

The act of smoking while brewing is sort of nasty, but not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. But what it tells me is that the owner has a lax view of health and safety regulations so I would have to ask myself in which other aspects of his operations does he ignore the rules that are designed to protect his customers.

 

[PartagasD4]

Now that's some delicious looking food!

Now let's say I was a chewing tobacco user and you came to my restaurant and you saw me leaning over the smoker with dip dripping out of my mouth onto your food? Would that suddenly be gross because it's kind of the same thing!

This smoking thing really doesn't bother me at all I'm just debating for the sake of playing devils advocate. Some people aren't very open minded about other opinions...:

OK this reminds me of a true story from my younger days..around 1980 just graduated from HS got a job with Pepsi Cola in Tampa. I was a trainee and they sent me to work the Florida State fair for a week. I was hauling syrup tanks by dolly to all the food vendors in the fair. A lot of walking and yes they were ball lock kegs if I can remember Any way I came up to a small trailer making cheese steaks. This older real heavy guy didn't look like he shaved or bathed in days answered the back door and he was a tobacco chewer and it was running down his chin and all down his shirt. I can't remember what I did with the Pepsi tank(s) but I do remember he proceeded to go back to hovering over the cheese steaks he was grilling on the flat top.
My stomach turned ughhh.

 

[oylerck]

Isn't it against the law? As far as I know, in Rhode Island you cannot smoke inside in any business.

I know South Dakota you can still smoke inside. Unless, they have changed in the past year. It's been awhile since I have eaten there.

 

[signpost]

This is the kind of thing that doesn't need to be a big deal in order to decide not to allow it. Is it likely to harm a lot of people? Nope. Is it the best, cleanest, and safest way to do things? Sure isn't.

And it blows me away how offended people get when they notice others trying to improve our society and protect people that are likely unaware of a potential problem. Is it such an imposition on the worker to expect them to smoke on a break when they are not working. That doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

 

[akthor]

I echo others thoughts I liken it to the chef smoking while cooking. Unprofessional on the one hand and frankly unsanitary and gross on the other.

 

[arnobg]

This is the kind of thing that doesn't need to be a big deal in order to decide not to allow it. Is it likely to harm a lot of people? Nope. Is it the best, cleanest, and safest way to do things? Sure isn't.

And it blows me away how offended people get when they notice others trying to improve our society and protect people that are likely unaware of a potential problem. Is it such an imposition on the worker to expect them to smoke on a break when they are not working. That doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

This is what I've been trying to say, couldn't have said it better myself.

I work in the aviation industry as an air traffic controller, probably one of the most regulated career fields in the world so I might be a little biased as a "rule follower". There's few people in my job who have the mentality that small rules are okay to be broken because they don't agree with them or they're "unnecessary". These are the people that get others hurt because they don't understand the intricacy of why the rule might exist in the first place, to protect someone or something.

 

[CGVT]

If a brewer had Hep A...... couldn't he just sneeze while brewing and get the same effect? Or the person serving you the beer having it ...... The idea that a smoking brewer dropping a Hep A tainted cigarette butt in a mash tun is somehow really increasing the odds of spreading Hep A is a tremendous stretch at best.

That said, it seems weird to me that a brewery would want to let the image get out of people seeing them smoke while brewing. It is fairly obvious to me that it is going to turn some people off - so you just don't do it. Especially in a way that is visible to people. Just an obviously bad business move for sure. It is an outright guarantee that it would result in fewer beers sold when people see it happening.

However, the idea that somehow this is a significant health risk to the beer being consumed is ludicrous. I would be more worried about the chemicals used to clean the mash tun, hoses, pipes and fittings not being thoroughly rinsed, or the bartender not washing their hands well enough before pouring you a pint. Or.... well - pretty much a million other things that could "potentially" be a problem. I just don't even see the mechanism by which this travels through the brewing process into a beer and into a consumer. It is just a psychological turn off to customers.... which is more than enough not to do it.

Exactly

 

[Brownalemikie]

Yep, and I imagine some people never leave home on a cloudy day for fear of getting struck by lightning

Have a HB and relax folks, life's too short to worry about such trivial things.

 

[mj1angier]

My biggest two things with this: Don't do things that hurt the image of the company; and do that stuff off the clock- I don't pay you to to eat, smoke, sleep or shi$t !!!

 

[CGVT]

My biggest two things with this: Don't do things that hurt the image of the company; and do that stuff off the clock- I don't pay you to to eat, smoke, sleep or shi$t !!!

But if I take a 15 minute dump on your time every day, it amounts to 62.5 hours over a 50 week year. Hell, I finagled another week of vacation.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Just don't get ashes in the beer and I'm okay. I do know a couple people allergic to tobacco, but I do not know the extent that the smoke would reach them in packaging. Obviously they wouldn't go to the bar for this reason.

Here's the thing-- that smoke in the air leaves a nasty coating of tar and nicotine everywhere. Just go to a smoker's house and clean a window you'll see it on the towel. (Many people smoke outside their own homes for this reason) And of course, there is a difference between what we might do as home brewers and what the food prep laws are for state to state. Someone said why blast it on social media? Good point. That ruined reputations and impacts lively hoods. Just report it to the health department, if they are not already in trouble they likely get to correct the problem and stay in operation.

 

[brewcat]

Strange. A lot of work to clean off nicotine.

 

[premington]

As long as the ashes don't fall in the mash tun or boil tank, I don't really care if the brewer smokes. But I'm a child of the 60s and 70s, when it seemed everyone smoked.

But I do agree with another person here who said, in a commercial brewery, it's a matter of perception. It just doesn't look good and appears unprofessional. Many people are turned off towards smoking in general, so if it were my brewery, there'd be no smoking anywhere inside the building. Regardless of my feelings, there are probably laws supporting this attitude.

Now, if I were at a buddy's house and he and I were doing a brew in his garage and he pulled out a smoke, I wouldn't care.

 

[ericbw]

What if he eats while brewing? Licks his fingers?

This isn't about smoking as much as it's about touching your mouth.

 

[Fedora]

What if he eats while brewing? Licks his fingers?

This isn't about smoking as much as it's about touching your mouth.

So what if he does?

You think you're gonna get cooties from your IPA because the brewer had a snack during the mash?

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Besides, if the brewer is sticking his smoky fingers in a hot mash tun after they've touched the cigarette (or his mouth), I'm pretty sure the burns will teach him not to do that quicker than we could complain

 

[ericbw]

Eventually things cool down. His cooties get on things then. Does smoke while he bottles?

It's pretty basic food service sanitation. But keep saying it's no big deal.

 

[Redtab78]

Not reading the full 6 pages.........but........imo....no one said anything about this stuff before there was political regulations, and were all here, so it never hurt our ancestors, so why be so upset about it?

Seriously though, there is 100,000 other serious things to be worried about, having a brewer smoke a cigarette while hes brewing isnt 1 of those for me.

But, i suppose we must all be worried about something...so to each his own....meanwhile, ill continue going out to Afghanistan as i have for the past 20 years to defend the freedom that others need to make decisions about this miniscule stuff.

If it bothers you, dont go there....easy decision.

 

[premington]

Not reading the full 6 pages.........but........imo....no one said anything about this stuff before there was political regulations, and were all here, so it never hurt our ancestors, so why be so upset about it?

Seriously though, there is 100,000 other serious things to be worried about, having a brewer smoke a cigarette while hes brewing isnt 1 of those for me.

But, i suppose we must all be worried about something...so to each his own....meanwhile, ill continue going out to Afghanistan as i have for the past 20 years to defend the freedom that others need to make decisions about this miniscule stuff.

If it bothers you, dont go there....easy decision.

I admire your perspective...

 

[Calichusetts]

This thread is the epitome of the internet. People upset about smoking and linking it to other "sanitary" fields like cooking. Let me just say this. DO NOT GOOGLE HOW FOOD IS MADE! Seriously. You think your chicken is clean and nice, your peanut butter, can of corn....even if you google the FDA guidelines on acceptable rates of of "non food" allowed in your food, you would be on a liquid diet in a minute.

 

[Pkrd]

... you would be on a liquid diet in a minute.

 

[CGVT]

Eventually things cool down. His cooties get on things then. Does smoke while he bottles?

It's pretty basic food service sanitation. But keep saying it's no big deal.

It's no big deal

 

[ericbw]

Not reading the full 6 pages.........but........imo....no one said anything about this stuff before there was political regulations, and were all here, so it never hurt our ancestors, so why be so upset about it?

Seriously though, there is 100,000 other serious things to be worried about, having a brewer smoke a cigarette while hes brewing isnt 1 of those for me.

But, i suppose we must all be worried about something...so to each his own....meanwhile, ill continue going out to Afghanistan as i have for the past 20 years to defend the freedom that others need to make decisions about this miniscule stuff.

If it bothers you, dont go there....easy decision.

The ancestors that died young? The ones that died from infections because doctors didn't wash their hands? Pre-Louis Pasteur, you're right, there were no government regulations. It was awesome.

 

[ericbw]

This thread is the epitome of the internet. People upset about smoking and linking it to other "sanitary" fields like cooking. Let me just say this. DO NOT GOOGLE HOW FOOD IS MADE! Seriously. You think your chicken is clean and nice, your peanut butter, can of corn....even if you google the FDA guidelines on acceptable rates of of "non food" allowed in your food, you would be on a liquid diet in a minute.

The federal code (Title 21, section 117) is pretty clear about washing hands, wearing gloves, and avoiding cross contamination. It specifically mentions the use of tobacco near food, food contact surfaces, and food packaging.

Or were you just repeating what you've hear about "how much rat feces is acceptable in your food?

The point is that every effort should be made to avoid contamination.