Suspicious fire hits bar
A massive fire which destroyed a pub on the Isle of Lewis is being treated by police as suspicious.
The centre of Stornoway on the island was closed by emergency services after the blaze started at the Clachan Bar at around 12.30am last Saturday.
It took almost six hours for nearly 40 firefighters to bring the fire under control.
A ceiling inside the pub and part of the roof collapsed.
A Stornoway police spokes-man said: "A police inquiry has been instigated and a positive line of inquiry is now being followed.
The pub will have to be rebuilt."
The Clachan is thought to be the island's biggest bar.
There has been a pub on the site since 1927.
Cigarettes confiscated Customs officers at Bristol Airport seized more than 30,000 cigarettes from a group of travellers returning from Tenerife in the Canary Islands last Friday.
Two men, a woman and three children had their baggage searched as they passed through Customs.
Officers found 31,200 cigarettes which they confiscated.
The group was released pending further enquiries.
Customs spokesman Bob Gaiger said: "Travellers to the Canary Islands should realise that normal duty-free allowances apply from there.
An individual can only bring home 200 cigarettes free of duty.
"In this case the three adults far exceeded that amount and will have lost several thousand pounds spent on the purchase."
The duty evaded on the seized goods is around £5,200.
Plastic plan for pubs Police and councils will be able to order rowdy pubs and clubs to use only plastic glasses and bottles under a proposal being considered by ministers.
The proposal would become part of the Licensing Bill, currently going through Parliament, and would be attached as a condition of granting a licence.
It is part of a bid to crack down on violence, particularly "glassings" which account for one in seven drink-related attacks.
Pubs where there have been fights could be closed if they do not obey the plastic-only order.
A spokesman for the Home Office, which is working on the Bill with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, said: "The council might attach certain conditions on to the grant-ing of the licence.
"They may apply to issues such as fire safety or glass.
It's possible plastic-only glasses may be made a condition if the police say there is a particular problem with glassings at a pub.
"It would not be across the board, it would be tailored to problem pubs."
Family safe after blaze A family has escaped uninjured after their pub was attacked by arsonists.
The Green Man, in Bell Green, Coventry, was left badly damaged after the blaze last Friday.
The couple running the pub, their 17 and 15-year-old sons, a a cousin and friend escaped to safety after dialling 999.
Firefighters found a home-made "bottle bomb" containing paraffin on the premises.
Police are studying security camera footage after reports of two men seen running away from the premises, their faces covered by ski masks.
Host injured by robber A pub licensee was knocked unconscious by a robber who hit him over the head and made off with takings that he was about to bank.
The landlord of the Half Moon Inn, in Littleover, Derby, was on his way to a high street bank when he was attacked last Saturday morning.
Police believe he was hit with a blunt instrument or fist.
The landlord staggered to a nearby property and an ambulance was called.
He was taken to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary but released in the afternoon with bruising to the head.
Detective Constable Damian Ayling is appealing for witnesses or anybody driving a dark Ford Fiesta in the area to come forward to eliminate themselves from inquiries.
He said: "It was in a busy stretch of road in a driveway next to the pub.
The landlord is very shaken up by what has happened."
Contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or DC Ayling on 01332 290100.
