Since the smoking ban, many pub landlords have spent thousands of pounds to accommodate smoking customers in outdoor shelters and gardens.

In my local the owners, who are non-smokers, have opened up a small garden at the rear. Yet during our recent brief spell of hot weather, this garden was dominated by non-smokers who still complained if you put a cigarette to your mouth. As I pointed out to them they have two choices, in or out but I have only one.

This ban has killed off all the atmosphere in pubs. Gone are the days when you could sit with friends debating the world's problems with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. To do that now you have to go outside.

Some pubs are losing trade over this ban and some will close, so even the whingeing non-smokers, many of whom only visit pubs during holidays and high days, will have nowhere to go.

Perhaps this is the Government's real intention, it would certainly solve the binge drinking problem.

I am a regular visitor to Spain where they tried to ban smoking in 2006 but not in the draconian way our government has implemented it.

There, bars were given a choice so long as they display a notice stating which option they had chosen. There are no threats of heavy fines for allowing your customers to smoke and 90 per cent chose to remain smoking.

KATE LAY Middletown Hailey