Third pub calls time on smoke

The Three Crowns in Ettingshall Park, The Mermaid in Wightwick and now the Quadrant Lounge in the city centre are all completely cigarette-free zones.

Bob Flanagan, who has been running the Three Crowns for seven years, ordered drinkers to stub out their cigarettes last August. And Stephen Burton-Pye, manager of the Mermaid, said business is booming after banning smoking in October.

Now the Quadrant Lounge in the city centre has joined the ranks well ahead of this year's blanket ban, which comes into force in July.

Mr Flanaghan spent £16,000 at the Dovedale Road watering hole to install a new patio, benches and an open-sided conservatory to make up his smoking area.

He said: "I didn't want to wait around for everyone else to do it."

Mr Flanagan said he had lost some customers to the move but added: "We've also noticed lots of new people coming in.

"Now we're getting a lot more families and people wanting to eat."

He said many of the pub's regulars were now either trying to quit or had cut down. "The staff love it too because you leave the place and you don't smell of smoke," he said.

"We used to have sore throats and our eyes would hurt at the end of a busy night. That just doesn't happen now."

Mr Burton-Pye said outlawing smoking at his Bridgnorth Road pub had proved a big boost to business. He said: "If anything we are doing even better than we were before."

From July, all pubs in England will become no-smoking zones and local councils will be responsible for enforcing the law.

By Daniel Pountney