Chris Maclean: 50 days of smoke-free

This weekend will signify 50 days of the smoking ban. Only now can we start drawing realistic conclusions. Even so it is impossible to separate out factors like the weather, changes in the interest rate, holidays and consumer confidence.

So what do we know now? Well, the sky hasn't fallen in and most of us are still trading.

I reckon I lost about £2,000 in the early part of July but things have recovered. Now it seems better than before.

People I have spoken to assure me that fruit machine takings, the most feared casualty of the ban, have been resilient. Indeed I am hearing tales of an increased spend.

People who have planned for the ban appear to have had their actions vindicated ~ although I've seen some hideous solutions offered which clearly cannot work. Customers will not go and stand in a scruffy yard looking at the back buildings of a pub when the passing pedestrians and cars offer a far more interesting scene.

There is still a prevailing stench of smug, self-righteousness glee by those who campaigned for the ban, which I loathe. Camden Council has expensive banners advertising "smoke free zones" which seem to state the obvious but have the benefit of squandering our business rates.

New smells emerge. There are fag butts all around outside each morning and I struggle to contain the mess. My sense of smell is dramatically improved ~ which isn't always a benefit. This week I had a customer who is very short and very softly spoken. When he says something, and he is quite insistent, I have to lean towards him and get very close. Then I discover he has horrid breath and it suddenly becomes unpleasant. It wasn't so before the ban.

But the very sad thing, for me, is the steadfast band of believers who think this ban is a terrible aberration and it is only a matter of time before it is repealed. The judicial review will set things right.

I am sorry. It will not happen.

You are flying in the face of all of the evidence.

No country, anywhere else in the world, has repealed the ban.

There is no significant political party, or indeed politician, who has put their weight behind repealing the act.

There is no significant surge of new public opinion to suggest an upheaval in what is in place.

And there is the comforting knowledge that the Government's own party, responsible for the introduction of this wretched legislation, is currently bathing in a significant increase in their own popularity.

This is hardly the wind of change.

I am tempted to place a bet on the likelihood of the ban being repealed. The odds must be close to those for finding Elvis still alive or that Martians live in Blackpool.

Anyone fancy a bet?

Lets get on with our businesses