UK News: Craven Pubs Ban Prime Minister Gordon Brown

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined the ranks of Craven's drunk and disorderly and been banned from pubs and clubs in the area.

The pubwatch group STAND (Stopping Trouble And Night-time Disorder) has put the Prime Minister on a six-month ban.

He has been accused of causing disruption and discomfort for other customers by implementing the national smoking ban.

His name will be put on lists behind the bars of all 105 premises in the scheme to remind staff he cannot be served.

The decision was taken at a STAND meeting in Skipton on Wednesday.

John Garton, chairman of the licensee-led group, said the ban was not an empty gesture. "The smoking ban is detrimental to everyone in the country," he said.

The number of pubs going under or struggling to survive was too alarming to ignore, he added.

"Our pubs are in trouble and we have to do something about it," he said.

Mr Garton hoped the action would open a debate about alternatives to the smoking ban.
 
Mr Brown will now receive a letter explaining the ban and his rights to appeal. To do so, he would have to attend a STAND meeting and argue his case.

Asked if STAND expected any response from Downing Street, Mr Garton said: "Maybe; we'll just have to wait and see."

Skipton landlords fully support the ban on the Prime Minister.

Lorraine Wilkinson, landlady of the Cock and Bottle, Swadford Street, Skipton, said: "I wasn't at the meeting, but I thoroughly agree with it - he is killing us.

"We're having to heat the outside of the pub as well as the inside now. It's changed the whole ethos of pubs."

Ron King, landlord of The Commercial Inn, on Water Street, Skipton, said: "I've definitely lost trade from it. I've nowhere for my customers to go outside.

"People get on to me about it and I say, it's not me, it's the Government. But they're fined £50 if they're caught and I'm fined £2,000.

"I would have thought in this day and age of equality what we should have had was one room for smokers and one room for non-smokers. At the moment there are one or two pubs in the country closing every week."

Caroline Wooler, landlady of The Cross Keys Inn, Otley Road, Skipton, said she was waiting for planning permission to put up a smoking shelter.

"The (smoking) ban is ruining our trade," she said. "We do have a lot of customers who don't smoke, but we find they go outside with those who do smoke, so we have an empty pub. Everyone is outside in the cold and wet."

Claire Hazelgrove, Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Skipton and Ripon, said people should stand up for what they believed in.

But she said: "It is the Government's duty to protect those who work and socialise in pubs from the dangerous toxins found in cigarettes and this law is doing just that."

The Herald has, of course, asked Downing Street for a comment, but none had been received by the time the paper went to press.


LMAO, this was in my local paper. it'd be funny if he actually turned up to fight his case.