The smoking ban: a buying opportunity?

An affront to democracy or the best health and safety legislation ever introduced?

We've heard many views on the smoking ban, my favourite coming from an affronted nightclub operator who feared for the health of his barstaff, given they would now be forced to go outside for a smoke and risk being run over by passing traffic. A proper corker, that one.

Whatever your take on the English smoking restrictions, the last piece in the UK ban's jigsaw will cement the change in the way pubs and their consumers interact across the entire British Isles. Whether this'll be for the better or for the worse, well, 'you pays yer money, you takes yer choice'.

Forecasts - and evidence from Scotland and elsewhere - suggest beer sales will slide five per cent or more, and pub operating profits will go the same way, at least in the short term.

Long term? Who knows.

Pubcos and independents clearly won't see the full impact of the ban until the dark, cold, wet nights of autumn and early winter, though if our recent weather continues it could bring an earlier test.

Investors in a number of the large pubcos and brewers, however, have already started sneezing. Shares in the likes of Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns, Greene King and Marston's have all taken a hammering as investors jump ship in the days leading up to the English ban.

On the other hand this provides a buying opportunity for those far-sighted dabblers, with a few listed pub groups certainly likely to outrun the market in the longer term.

Identifying who will do the 'out-running' stuff and who will do the 'lagging behind' stuff isn't my job, but I have my thoughts on the matter.

Meanwhile, the ban provides me with a long-awaited opportunity: I can finally start that branded ashtray collection I've always wanted…