Hugh ‘Hamish’ Howitt will have to pay £2,500 in fines after becoming the first pub landlord to be prosecuted in England for defying smoking ban legislation.

The landlord of the Happy Scots Bar in Blackpool pleaded guilty to charges of allowing people to smoke on 12 separate occasions.

He was given a discharge on seven accounts but fined £100 of each of the other counts – a total of £500. He was also ordered to pay £2,000 costs.

District Judge Peter Ward was reported to say that Hewitt campaign against smoking ban legislation, which came into force in England on 1 July, had been “silly, pointless and misguided” and had “achieved nothing”.

Howitt told the BBC website that he was going to “fight on and on”.

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By Chris Walton

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