Barbecues: ‘Precious furlough money was never meant to pay for this kind of damaging behaviour’

• DURING this high-mortality, respiratory-attacking, Covid-19 pandemic, this government has failed to advise retail outlets to take off sale, for the duration, health-damaging barbecues.

In contrast to a cigarette, one barbecue can spread respiratory damaging, carcinogenic smoke, into several homes and gardens in an area.

A disabled friend, having painfully made her way into her small garden for some sunshine with its immune-boosting vitamin D, was driven indoors again by black and grey smoke issuing from a fired-up barbecue, in a nearby property.

Indoors she was still under attack with the smoke entering through the air vents in the closed double-glazed windows.

She is just one of many whose lives, during lockdown, already difficult and painful, were made worse by neighbours who saw no contradiction in behaving this way and then clapping for the NHS.

Had there been a café open she would have made her way to it, painful as walking is, just to be able to breathe air as intended by nature not carcinogenic smoke.

It was once considered socially acceptable to smoke cigarettes even when the body signalled its distress by coughing.

My friend and others now have their lives governed by Russian roulette rules. They can never relax on a sunny day, because they may soon be coughing due to an attack on their respiratory system by carcinogenic barbecue smoke.

This extra burden could have been avoided by government guidance to retail outlets to keep barbecues in storerooms for the duration. Barbecues have gone from the occasional one on a Sunday to every day.

Precious furlough money was never meant to pay for this kind of damaging behaviour.

With people trying to shield from Covid-19, adding another element which attacks their respiratory system and increases the need for medical intervention, shows a Barnard Castle lack of care and planning.

Gas-fired barbecues, I understand, are almost smokeless and had only they been on display, many people’s lives during lockdown would have been less of a siege.

The London Fire Brigade have advised no barbecues in parks because of the fire risk. In closely-packed London, barbecues are much more of a fire risk in tinder-dry gardens.

My offer to speak to my friend’s neighbours was declined as she felt an approach could create resentment and future problems.

Clear guidance from the government would have removed this dilemma and lessened the chance of conflict between neighbours.

RÓISÍN NÍ ĊORRÁIN,
N1