SMOKERS in Lancaster won a rare victory this week. Managers at Woolworths on Market Street decided to allow customers to smoke in the store's cafe last Wednesday to attract much maligned smokers to the shop. A spokesman for the store said the move was due to customer demand. He continued: "We had so many regulars asking us about that we decided we had to satisfy them."

And there was further good news for the area's tobacco puffers. Managers of two supermarket cafes in Lancaster and Morecambe said they've considered banning cigarettes but decided against it, even though rivals Asda have banned smoking.

Non-smoker Steve Readman, manager at Morrisons' cafe in Morecambe admitted he and others at the store had been considering banning the addictive weed.

He said: "We decided against it in the end. It's a difficult one because there's such a large amount of people who smoke. I think the best thing is to have a policy and keep to it. Changing it about can lose you customers. We have a smoking room in the staff canteen where they can smoke to their lung's content."

Staff at Sainsbury's restaurant in Lancaster also decided not to ban fags, although they may still do so in the future.

"Looking out now I can see that there's as many people in the smoking area as not," said manager Alexandra Wilkinson. "It's always full but we do talk to the regional managers about it and policy could change in the future."

Meanwhile manager of Asda's restaurant Michael Stuart, was reluctant to talk about the response from the public since they banned cigarettes a year ago and declined to say if he was a smoker himself. Meanwhile smokers alarmed by recent government ideas about banning cigarettes in pubs can rest easy. Chairman of the local Victuallers Association, George Whittaker, said he hadn't heard of a single pub in the area who had banned smoking, although a few have bans in eating areas while serving.

"People can smoke in pubs and long may it continue," he laughed.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.