The Big Smoke-easy

It's 2.13am and I'm sat at the bar next to a chain-smoking biker, a cavewoman and a Labour councillor. My eyes sting as the air is thick with the smoke. There are about 20 other people who have lit up.

At this moment in time they're all staring at a group of women dressed as cheerleaders dancing across the bar and pool table. Wearing white vests and skirts fashioned from pink and white bin bags, they stand out from the leather-clad bikers who are 'rocking out' to Queen's 'Fat Bottomed Girls'.

I'm at a smoking lock-in at a country pub in the North of England, which I have been asked not to identify. I admit I had expected it to be a far more low-key, clandestine affair. But there's both a biker meeting and a birthday party on and although the pub is only licensed until 2am the party carries on until well after 4am.

Word spreads around

A large group of locals are here too. They started to appear in dribs and drabs from around midnight. Word has spread that the pub is a 'smoker's sanctuary' and people travel from several villages away to light up here after hours.

Two hours later, the bar is heaving with people - almost all of them smoking. The licensee points me in the direction of one of his best customers. "I wouldn't go to a pub that doesn't let you smoke," the customer tells me. "I'd go in the toilets and have one. I'm not going in the cold to have one. The ban is bollocks, we're being treated like lepers." Another regular says: "At the end of the day all the government is trying to do is rob us blind. They stop smoking to stop us coming out for a drink and then drive us to the supermarkets."

Eight months on from the introduction of the smoking ban in England, many pubs are reporting dramatic falls in takings. With cold weather keeping smokers at home, some rebel licensees across England are taking the law into their own hands by holding similar smoking lock-ins. For some it's a way of sticking two fingers up to a ban which they don't agree with, while others say that it's the only way they can keep their heads above water.

This pub is entirely dependent on its wet trade and the licensee tells me that all but three of his regulars are smokers. "If I strictly enforced the ban I would be shut down," he tells me as he lights up. "Instead of taking £2,000 a week, I'd be taking £800, which I couldn't survive on."

Fear of getting caught

In this town alone thepublican.com​ is aware of at least six pubs that are allowing smokers to light up after hours, though few as blatantly as this one. Another licensee told me he will often lock up and get the ashtrays out if there are a few regulars in the pub at closing time. He, like the other licensees mentioned in this article, is worried about getting caught and asks me not to print his name. But for every licensee flouting the ban, there are many, many more who are enforcing it.

I spoke to a licensee in the town who tells me that pubs holding smoke-ins are stealing his trade. "I'm open till 2am at the weekend. After midnight used to be one of my busiest times, when the other pubs had kicked out. "Big gangs of lads used to come in. The lock-ins are taking my business. My takings in those two hours have dropped from £1,200 to £600."

And indeed, I've been watching groups of men in their late teens skulk into the bar and light up for the past few hours. "Regulars from other bars are coming here to smoke," the licensee at the biker pub tells me, "including a local councillor. He's a director of the local working men's club but he has a drink down there and then comes down here till one or two in the morning to smoke."

As the lock-in draws to a close there are cigarette butts everywhere. On table-tops, in the sinks, in the toilets and trodden into the carpets around the bar. But, with the councillor a regular customer and the activities at the pub well known in the area, the licensee tells me he has no plans to stub out his smoke-in. He says he can't afford to.

• Are you aware of 'smoke-ins' taking place in your area? Or are you holding one yourself? Call the news team on 020 7955 3759 or email news@thepublican.com