Licensee under fire over smoking shelter

A licensee is locked in a battle with his local council after it ordered him to remove a smoking shelter from outside his pub.

In April last year Warren Shawcross from the Four Alls Inn in Burnley, Lancashire, put up a gazebo outside the Grade II listed pub to provide a place for customers to smoke.

"Smoking customers would stand in the doorway in poor weather to smoke, which was both illegal and meant non-smokers have to walk through them to gain entry so we had to take action."

But eight months after the gazebo was put up, Pendle Borough Council sent a letter stating it detracted "from the ambience of the building" and had to be be removed by April 18.

Warren has slammed the demands as "ridiculous" and argues the gazebo fits in with its surroundings.

"It is a green colour and in no way attached to the building, he said. "It is not as if it is completely out of place. Many, both smokers and non-smokers believe the gazebo actually complements the building.

"People are even talking about starting up a petition to keep it ."

He added the removal of the gazebo would lead to a drop in sales during an already difficult trading period.

"We will lose custom due to non-smokers not wanting to enter through smoke, and smokers wanting some shelter in bad weather."

Warren has now appealed for an extension of the notice period from the Planning Inspectorate.

A spokeswoman for Pendle Borough Council said: "Four Alls Inn is a listed building and is in a Conservation Area. The Council's view is that the gazebo adversely affects the setting of the listed building and the wider Conservation Area."