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Smoking ban prompts landlords to quit 

THE landlords of a Suffolk pub have become the first victims of the smoking ban - and last night a campaign group predicted that hundreds of pubs across the country will close as a result of the controversial crackdown.

After more than two years running the Greene King-owned Elephant and Castle in Hospital Road, Bury St Edmunds, licensees Marian and Gareth Thomas have decided to call time on their business.

The couple, who had their plans for a smoking shelter outside the pub turned down, claim the smoking ban was the final straw.

The news prompted Forest, the campaign group for smoker's rights, to warn the pub could be the first of hundreds nationally to be hit by the ban, and warned rural areas looked set to be the worst affected of all.

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