Vintners to warn Martin against planned smoking ban

PUBLICANS will step up their campaign of opposition to the planned ban on smoking in pubs when their largest representative body holds its annual conference this week.

The Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), which represents 6,000 pubs outside Dublin, will use the gathering in Letterkenny to send a strongly worded warning to Health Minster Micheál Martin that his plan for a total ban on smoking in all pubs from January 1 next year will not be worth the paper it is written on.

VFI chief executive Tadg O’Sullivan has already dismissed the plan, announced four months ago, as “unworkable, untenable and unenforceable”, and said only a much softer proposal involving limited pub numbers or restricted areas within pubs could be entertained.