Welsh Butt Out! campaigners rally round

Welsh Assembly members were given the Butt Out! message loud and clear at a protest in Cardiff yesterday.

Licensees, staff and pub customers from across South Wales came together to rally against the assembly's plans for a blanket smoking ban.

Organised by Licensed Victuallers Wales (LVW) in association with The Publican's Butt Out! campaign, the protest also attracted Conservative Assembly Member David Davies, who stepped out to offer a message of support.

The assembly's plans for ban, which are expected to be given the green light by Westminster's Public Health Bill, had been discussed in Cardiff the day before, with March 2008 named as a possible start date.

More than 100 protestors met at the main entrance to the assembly, before 1,200 balloons were launched - one for every job licensees fear will be lost in the country if a blanket ban is introduced.

Irishman Seamus Healy, who runs the Village Tavern in Clydach, near Swansea, said: "Where I come from in County Clare five pubs have closed since the smoking ban was brought in last year.

"Rural pubs are in trouble. I think that's the sort of thing we are going to see in Wales."

Peter Vaivars of the Royal Oak in Ynyswen near Treorchy believes he will lose 80 per cent of his business if a blanket ban is brought in.

"The Welsh Assembly is just looking for something to justify its existence, isn't it?" he said.

Ian May, a customer at the Bush Hotel in Clydach Vale in the Rhondda Valley, said: "If I couldn't go to my pub and have a cigarette I'd be more likely to buy beer from the supermarket and drink at home.

"At the end of the day what's wrong with freedom of choice? If I wasn't a smoker I'd feel the same way as it's about freedom."

LVW secretary John Price said there were now plans for Welsh licensees to join up with others in the UK at a protest in London.