SMOKERS FACE TOUGH CURBS IN PUBS AND RESTAURANTS

Smokers will be segregated in all large restaurants and bars in areas
fitted with expensive new ventilation systems under an agreement being
thrashed out by health Ministers and the industry.

The Government is on the brink of agreeing a new voluntary code of conduct,
which will be seized on eagerly by licensees and restaurateurs as their
last chance of avoiding an outright ban.

Despite the cost of new ventilation - estimated at a minimum of UKP3,000
per premises - publicans who complain will be under pressure from their own
industry to conform. Joe O'Riordan, proprietor of Papa Joe's and PR's
nightclub in Hastings, Sussex, and chairman of the Guild of Master
Victuallers, said: "Any licensee who chooses to ignore that advice from the
leaders of the industry does so at their peril. They will be risking a
total smoking ban that would have devastating consequences on the trade."

The code will insist that children be protected from smoke and that
restaurants and cafes should have prominent notices so that customers know
as soon as they enter whether and where smoking is allowed.

The emphasis on a voluntary code will disappoint campaigners who wanted the
Government to come down harder on smokers. The Labour peer Lord Janner of
Braunstone, who has arranged for the House of Lords to debate smoking this
week, warned: "Voluntary agreements are fine if they are going to work, but
I strongly suspect that they won't work.

"There is no reason why restaurants shouldn't be non-smoking areas. It
works in New York: it doesn't stop people eating out."

Public Health Minister Tessa Jowell is expected to produce a White Paper on
tobacco before Christmas, and another on public health early next year.

Ministers are believed to have dropped a proposal to raise from 16 to 18
the age at which teenagers are permitted to buy cigarettes, and the
licensed trade believes it has persuaded the Government that some premises
should be exempt from the rule that smokers have to be segregated.

During negotiations, publicans took a senior civil servant on a pub crawl
around several northern towns to prove their point.

Tony Payne, chief executive of the Huddersfield-based Licensed Victuallers'
Association, said: "We went to London to meet the people at the Department
of Health, and they said "Can we come and look at some of your pubs?" It
really made my day. We really appreciated that they were prepared to come
all the way up north."

A survey of restaurateurs published last month by the 2,500-member
Restaurant Association estimated that a quarter of its turnover came from
smokers. Chief executive Ian McKerracher said: "We are pushing aggressively
for a voluntary agreement. We think we have made significant progress.

"It is up to the independent restaurateur. If he doesn't bother, and his
customers don't mind, I don't believe the Government should step in."

Checked-by: Richard Lake