I won't pay, vows publican fined £500 for allowing smokers

Hamish Howitt was served with 12 summonses after he consistently allowed smokers to light up in his pub in Blackpool.

He could have been fined £2,500 for each infringement.

Instead, a district judge said he refused to make a martyr of him and fined Howitt £500 with £2,000 prosecution costs.

Sentencing him at Blackpool Magistrates' Court, District Judge Peter Ward told Howitt, who changed his plea to guilty before the start of a scheduled two-day trial, that his campaign was "silly, pointless and misguided".

He said: "Whatever your views are about the law, the law is the law and you are required to comply.

"I suggest your campaign has been silly, pointless and misguided. It has achieved nothing. It has served no useful purpose.

"All it seems to have done is cause a great deal of problems for yourself.

"I do not want to make a martyr of you by imposing swingeing penalties."

Scottish-born Howitt, who runs the Happy Scots Bar, left court vowing that he would continue to allow smokers to light up on his premises.

Flanked by 50 supporters, he said: 'I don't think it's pointless.

"I'm very proud of what I have achieved. I will not tell a blind lady with a guide dog to stand in the cold and the rain to have a cigarette."

The non-smoker claims the ban, which came into force in England on July 1, breaches smokers' human rights, and hopes to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. He said he was prepared to go to jail rather than pay any penalty.

He said: "To me this is a hate crime. I will not take it lying down and I won't pay any fines."

He said serious law-breakers were given a slap on the wrist by comparison.

"The same court that is fining me lets off criminals with cautions for offences relating to drugs like heroin, crack cocaine and Ecstasy," he said. "It's an utter disgrace."

He then invited locals to join him at his pub for a smoke.

Howitt, who chairs the Lancashire resort's anti-disorder Pubwatch scheme and has set up a pro-smoking political party called Fight Against Government Suppression, or FAGS, says his campaign has cost him around £40,000 and claims he is facing bankruptcy.

If he fails to pay his fines, he could face a maximum of six months in jail.