Wise pubs will profit from the ban

We know the date. The pub industry faces an outright smoking ban from 1 July next year and needs to grasp the change as both a challenge and an...

We know the date. The pub industry faces an outright smoking ban from 1 July next year and needs to grasp the change as both a challenge and an opportunity.

I appreciate that many people have seen the smoking ban as yet more Government interference in the hard-pressed pub

sector. I am also sympathetic to the view that the ban is a

slippery-slope and once smoking has been outlawed a draconian clampdown on drinking could follow.

But there is one over-arching argument in favour of the ban: smoking kills. Drinking alcohol in moderation is pleasant and mildly beneficial. But smoking kills.

It doesn't matter whether you smoke 10 cigarettes a day - as I used to - or 60. The habit will almost certainly make you ill and may kill you. It also harms the people you come into contact with.

Now we need to move the argument on. There's little point railing against the impending ban or even talking nonsense about infringing people's rights. The crucial thing is to prepare for 1 July and see it as an opportunity to get people back into pubs.

We start from a sound base: the overwhelming majority of people in England do not smoke. Many of them never or rarely go to pubs because they can't stand the smoky atmosphere. They are the potential customers the trade has to reach out to.

It's no good sitting back, wringing our hands and, like

Mr Micawber, hoping something will turn up. Brewers, pub

owners and individual licensees need a strategy to prevent a slump in custom when the ban comes in - and that means a strategy to win people who don't smoke.

I know a lot of investment is going into heated outside patios for smokers. But we shouldn't ignore pub interiors. Remember that old slogan: "There's a warm welcome at the pub"? It needs to be revived in a modern context, with images of pub scenes that include eating, drinking, playing games and a blazing fire.

We have to emphasise the positive sides of the pub experience. You meet friends there and you strike up conversations with strangers. You enjoy a drink in a convivial atmosphere, one that is far removed from the hideous images of young

people behaving badly on the streets.

And increasingly you can eat well in pubs. A joint promotion by celebrity chefs who now run pubs would help. "Join us at the pub," say Worrall Thompson, Gordon Ramsay and Jean-Cristophe Novelli. It would not go amiss.

The healthy and attractive side of drinking should also be stressed. The brewing industry is nervous of making such claims, but there is an abundance of evidence from Europe and the US that moderate consumption of beer and wine is part of a healthy diet. Red wine and good beer made from natural ingredients can help prevent heart disease, strokes and cancer. The evidence for such claims from medical authorities needs to be published and promoted.

There is a powerful role here for the British Guild of Beer Writers. Every one of its members that contributes to newspapers, magazines or radio programmes should be promoting the positive image of the pub and stressing that, free from the fug of smoke, it will be a more pleasant place to visit in July 2007.

The promotion has to also emphasise that the pub has changed. Not only does it offer imaginative food far removed from the peanuts and pork scratchings of yesteryear but it also welcomes women and children.

It is astonishing how many people who haven't been inside a pub for years have a time-warp impression of sawdust on the floor and a male-only clientele each with a damp roll-up in the corner of his mouth. It isn't like that any more. Picture

windows, carpeted floors, comfortable seating and decent

toilets make the modern pub a good place to visit.

Either we shout about these things or we sit back and allow the pub to go down the pan. Let us face 1 July 2007 as a new beginning.