SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES BAN

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A nationwide ban on smoking in all pubs and restaurants could be introduced by 2007 after the Government rejected voluntary restrictions and plans a legal crackdown. The success of similar bans in Ireland, California and New York City is believed to be behind the move.

However, to avoid a backlash from 13million smokers, the Government could hand responsibility for imposing the ban to local authorities. While they acknowledge that public opinion is swinging behind the idea of smoke-free pubs and bars, they say the ban must be total.

Smoke-free zones imposed by local authorities would lead to chaos, they warn, with smoking in pubs on one side of the street and a ban on the other. Following bans in the US and Ireland, similar laws are also on the way in Holland, Norway and Sweden. Ministers are determined to cut the number of smokers, currently stable at one adult in four, in order to meet targets on improving public health.

But they believe that in curbing tobacco advertising, raising tax on cigarettes and putting larger warnings on packets they have gone as far as they can without tightening the law on where smokers can light up. At the same time, growing evidence of the dangers from passive smoking has left pubs and restaurants facing a time bomb of compensation claims from staff forced to work in smoky rooms.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and Health Minister Melanie Johnson held a meeting with the British Hospitality Association to hear the industry's latest ideas for a tougher voluntary code of conduct, which they hope will prevent a legal ban from harming their trade. They included banning smoking while actually standing at the bar in pubs by 2006, and introducing nosmoking areas to 80% of pubs by 2007.

Ministers made it clear that this did not go far enough, and the proposals have effectively been sidelined. Instead, Labour is consulting on a plan to let local authorities ban smoking in public places as part of the party's Big Conversation, a nationwide series of debates ahead of the General Election, which is likely to be next year.

Several major cities are lining up to use such powers, including Manchester and Liverpool, which wants to bring in a ban by 2008 when it becomes European City of Culture. The Department of Health is also looking at the issue as part of a drive to cut the 120,000 deaths caused by smoking-related illness.

Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association said, "If the feedback from Labour's Big Conversation leans strongly towards a ban, then I think we'll see it as a manifesto pledge. If it's less clear, I think they will stick with a voluntary code for two or three more years, while waiting for public opinion to harden up."

The pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) claims change is inevitable, because of the threat of compensation lawsuits by bar staff. A spokesman said, "A vast majority of experts now say passive smoking is dangerous, so anybody being made ill at this moment from passive smoking in the workplace will have a claim for compensation."

A pub in western Ireland is allowing its customers to smoke, in open defiance of the country's recent ban on lighting up in the workplace. Galway-based Fibber McGee's decided to flout the law after suffering a 60% drop in sales since the ban was introduced.

Its owners are undeterred by warnings that they could lose their licence. "We're going out of business. We might as well go out with a puff of smoke," said co-owner Ciaran Levanzin. Fibber McGee's is the first of Ireland's 10,000 pubs to mount a direct challenge to the smoking ban, which has been broadly welcomed by the Irish public.

The government has claimed that 97% of pubs comply with the law, designed to protect bar staff from the effects of passive smoking. The Irish Republic's Western Health Board plans to seek an injunction against the owners of Fibber McGee's if it continues to defy the smoking ban.

A recent survey carried out for Ireland's Sunday Tribune newspaper found that the ban had had little impact on the pub trade, with 5% of respondents reporting an increase in business. Most pubs have attempted to accommodate smokers by building outdoor areas where they can indulge their habit.

Ireland's experiment with strict anti-smoking legislation has been closely watched abroad, with Norway adopting similar measures. There is also growing pressure for the UK government to follow suit. However, there is evidence that sales have suffered since Ireland's pubs went smoke-free.

According to the Vintners Federation of Ireland, which represents some 6,000 pubs, business has fallen off by between 15 and 25% since the ban came into force. "Many small, rural, and family-owned pubs have been hit particularly hard since the introduction of the ban and have serious concerns for their livelihoods," said the Federation's president, Seamus O'Donoghue.

The proprietors of Fibber McGee's, based in the centre of Galway, a busy tourist centre and university town, claim the ban deprived them of up to half of their former customers. "With the smoking ban, our business was going down the tubes anyway," said Ronan Lawless, who runs Fibber McGee's in partnership with Mr Levanzin.