For what it's worth (not much, apparently) I thought Skipy's original point about pub closures and falling business was a perfectly valid one and is glaringly obvious to anyone who regularly does gigs in pubs. As I said before, and it's still just as true, despite the opinion of Backdoorman and his ilk, the ban is not only the last nail in the coffin (albeit not the sole cause) for smaller 'community' type pubs, it has already had a marked effect on the number of available pub gigs for musicians working at the lower end of the market - whether or not they are smokers and regardless of their opinion on it. Any band playing in a pub has to generate enough extra sales for it to be worth the landlord paying them, and in many pubs the goalposts have now moved that bit too much. None of this bothers the brewers of course, they no longer own the majority of pubs and people can and do drink far more at home - it is the entertainment business that will suffer, although hopefully it may ultimately adapt and change. Don't bother shouting me down now though, come back in a year and tell me I'm wrong.