Skipy - You win. I can see that you will not be phased by rhyme nor reason. Neither will you let a few simple facts cloud your arguments. Let me just have one last try on this thread. Pubs have been loosing trade for years. The smoking ban may or may not have pushed some of them over the edge. It is not however the sole cause of them closing. Those that have and will close, will have closed anyway. Not a one that you mention up to now has been doing particularly well. All the smoking ban has done is speeded up the inevitable. Give us just one instance of a pub that was doing well before, losing all it's trade on July the 1st.

Anyhow, to my mind the number of people that benefit from the ban is far greater than those who lose out. And I don't just mean the 60-odd% who don't smoke having precidence over the 30-odd% who do. I am talking about the countless families who will be happy seeing their loved ones live rather than die a horrible lung disease related death. There can be no way of measuring that against the exeedingly small sacrifice that smokers have to make when they nip out for a fag.

Carry on and publish all the closures that the popular press and biased media can muster. Someone else can give the facts from the other side. I am fed up of banging my head on a wall. Tell you what though. I shall still be sat in the smoke free singaround while you stand outside with another coffin nail.

Good luck.

Dave