Mindhacking pub smokers
OK, so I've just started running a hotel with a nice restaurant with a bar attached. The bar is fairly popular, and so has lots of smokers lurking like fat otters outside the front door, where smart, posh restaurant customers should be walking in feeling all wowed by clean and healthy and posh the place is.

I haven't got the budget to put up a smokertorium, but I need to a. get the smokers to move exactly 5 paces to the left and b. kindly put their fag ends and empty packets in one of the eight bins I have kindly provided for this purpose and not ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE LIKE THEY@RE A BUNCH OF CANCER RIDDEN SEAGULS SHITTING FAG ENDS EVERYWHERE.

I have tried a. asking nicely and b. machine guns, without success. What genius tricks have you seen working to get people to not act like selfish cunts lately that might be remotely useful/entertaining?
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:05, 11 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

put a bench 5 paces to the left
they will sit on it
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:09, Reply)

place an outdoor heater wherever you want them to go

(Zoz prayed for twink on, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:09, Reply)

how about treating your customers with respect?

(PsychoChomp, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:09, Reply)

pff! have you worked in customer service industry?
customers are dicks. This probably includes me when I'm a customer
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:10, Reply)

Yeah of course.
Smokers aren't animals though, give them somewhere decent to go or they'll stand where they want.
(PsychoChomp, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:16, Reply)

Ban the lot of them.

( girlinthehole, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:18, Reply)

Put a "Danger leaking gas sign" just outside the door.

( Bartleby A dead man on vacation, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:21, Reply)

Velvet rope guiding the way to the entrance?
Or, as others have said, make the area you want them to use much more inviting.
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:23, Reply)

have an awning an a jumbrella
and have put out chairs and tables for them, but it's still bastard cold out, and I'm morally (and financially) opposed to running heaters outdoors for 6 hours a day.

I was seriously thinking today about renting an arabesque smoking tent thing for them, but doubt if they are fireproof.

A friend told me about how he was getting threats from the council that he'd lose his license because people leaving his bar late at night were talking on the street and disturbing local residents. Now, I couldn't see how you can stop people talking outside on the street, but it seems the default answer is to hand out lollipops to people leaving, so they unconsciously do an activity which stops them from talking.

I'm wondering if I can come up with something similar; maybe a very small TV screen playing porn somewhere you have to stand really close to to see?
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:29, Reply)

or machine guns

(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:30, Reply)

go outside yourself for about 10 mins in various weather
find where's best to stay out of the wind/rain. Guide them their with benches lights ashtrays etc. You can get the touch on heaters if you can afford them.
There's no point doing something to attract new customers which will get rid of the people who are already coming.
(PsychoChomp, Fri 28 Jan 2011, 20:33, Reply)