I’ve now quit, says landlord locked up for defying the law
A FORMER pub landlord, who is the only person to be jailed over the smoking ban, has revealed he’s quit the cigarettes.
Nick Hogan, 50, made headlines around the world after he held a ‘mass light-up’ at the Swan and Barristers pub in Bolton on the day the legislation came into force – July 1, 2007.
He was convicted of failing to prevent people from smoking in his pub on four separate occasions and ordered to pay more than £10,000 in fines and court costs.
Failure to pay the fines and fees led to him being jailed for six months, although he served just 11 days after a campaign to free him raised the total sum of money owed.
Speaking 10 years on from the ban’s introduction, Mr Hogan, a father-of-two and grandfather from Elton, Bury, said that despite giving up, he doesn’t regret the choice he made to defy the ban.
“I have been proven right and I think I have been vindicated because of the demise of the pub trade,” he told the M.E.N.
“That was the whole argument to begin with. I was a smoker but it was not about smoking. It was all about the freedom to choose.
“I was a business owner and I had a responsibility as a director to protect that business. I had 120 people working for me and I had a responsibility to those people and their families.”
Mr Hogan argues that the number of smokers has only fallen ‘slightly’ since the legislation came into force.
“Even today around 17 per cent of the UK population smoke and depending on whose figures you believe, it still generates up to £13bn a year in tax and duties,” he said.
“Why did the government ban the person and not the product? The answer is that they were hypocrites and want the money.”
He said he made a ‘conscious decision’ to stop smoking on turning 50 in February.
Mr Hogan remembers the ‘mass light-up’ as a carnival atmosphere.
“It was very smoky inside, which was the intention,” he said.
“There was never that amount of smoke in there on a normal day. The council stayed away but I carried on the policy. I told people that it was illegal to smoke in the pub. I told people that if they did choose to smoke, they could be fined £50.
“I actively told people what the law was. I was putting letters and notes on tables telling them that it was illegal to smoke but I would not throw them out because to me, it was about choice.
“One judge even said that I should not lose my licence because of the way I had conducted myself. I am not denying for one moment that smoking is a bad idea.”
Mr Hogan said the council returned ‘three, four or five times’ before he was finally summonsed to appear in court.
He denied charges under the Health Act 2006 in a trial at Bolton magistrates court in January 2008. He was found guilty of four charges but cleared of obstructing council officers. The first licensee in Greater Manchester to be convicted under the new laws, he was fined £750 for each offence – a total of £3,000 – plus court costs of £7,236.
Mr Hogan appealed against his conviction and sentence on three of the charges but lost and faced an extra £1,000 in court costs.
He was jailed for six months for non-payment in February 2010 but only served 11 days, walking out – coincidentally – on National Non-Smoking Day, after £8,000 was raised to pay off the remainder of what he owed.
He said: “It was a frightening experience and I was scared. I had never been to jail. I was not allowed to smoke in my own pub – but I could smoke in my cell.”
Mr Hogan entered politics after his release after running two other pubs and stood as a parliamentary candidate for Chorley for UKIP.
He’s now out of the pub game and said he owns a construction and insulation company.