Pete Robinson: Are opinion polls damaging your pub?

Apparently most of you 'support' the smoking ban, have 'embraced the opportunities' in the legislation, and would hate to see it rescinded. Is that what you really think?

Nah! Of course not. If the ban were to be repealed or amended 99% of you would rush out to take a sledgehammer to your accursed smoking shelters, pausing only to distribute a few ashtrays. The other 1% would reluctantly follow suit within the following eighteen months.

Financial columns would be bulging with pubco press releases welcoming smokers back in from the cold, while announcing much improved profit forecasts to bolster ailing share prices. Even JDW would inevitably join the feeding frenzy, re-fixing the brass cigarette receptacles above their uber-clean urinals.

So I was surprised and somewhat disappointed when the 500-pub survey, commissioned by the Publican & Britvic, indicated that 73% of landlords believe the smoking ban is the best thing for pubs since beer was invented.

While I've no intention of dissing the Publican magazine I'd urge a degree of caution before these findings are accepted as a true indication of the current status quo. After all 500 pubs is a relatively small sample and perhaps consisted of a high proportion of managerial staff with less of a long-term vested interest in the viability of their premises.

Meanwhile the Department of Health claims that three out of four people back the ban, listing fresh-smelling clothes, smoke-free bars and cleaner air as the main benefits. Well they would, wouldn't they? The atmosphere is certainly unpolluted by customers, that's for sure.

They even say a greater proportion of smokers support the ban (47%) than oppose it (37%). Anyone who seriously believes that should check the bottom of their garden for fairies.

Then a few days ago Greene King claimed a poll of 1,600 of their customers showed the majority of smokers & non-smokers alike visit pubs the same or more often since the ban. The word "customers" is the obvious giveaway here. It's only possible to ask people who come in, not those staying at home.

And 'staying at home' is what I'm hearing all the time amongst the dwindling numbers huddled together in the freezing smoking shelters, windswept terraces and draughty pavements outside today's pubs.

My own straw-poll of smoking customers shows a disappearing breed now winter is upon us. Gone is the genial 'sprit of the blitz' camaraderie in evidence during the relatively warm evenings of summer. These days those ostracised smokers are bloody angry.

Angry at being barred and criminalised for consuming a legal product. Angry at an unsympathetic licenced trade for not fighting the ban, and even angrier when they read surveys like the aforementioned. It's a kick in the teeth when the industry's spokesmen are telling them they won't be missed.

One more ominous sign is those dreadful 1970's 'home bars' we used to see hanging out of waste skips are now fetching £200-a-time from eager buyers, while eBay has introduced an entire category devoted to pub ashtrays.

It seems to me the industry is so preoccupied with attracting the alleged 'new' customers we were promised that it's taken it's eye off the ball, drastically pissing off a large section of it's formerly loyal clientele.

This time next year we may be desperately building bridges in an attempt to lure them back.