Snooker going up in smoke since cigs ban, says Ronnie

SNOOKER star Ronnie O’sullivan has claimed the ban on indoor smoking in public areas is killing the sport.

Outspoken Ronnie, 42, said the culture within snooker halls has changed and led to a decline since the law was introduced in 2007.

The five-times world champ said: “The smoking ban killed off the clubs, killed off the culture. “There might have 100 in

Outspoken champ Ronnie London at one point but now there’s just maybe five or six proper ones left.” Ronnie was speaking ahead of the release of his third novel, The Break, one of a series he has set in London’s Soho. He used to play snooker at a club as a boy in the Soho area, where his father Ronnie Snr ran sex shops. He said: “It has cleaned up around there now. I’m not sure if the kind of characters that were there are there any more. It used to be full-on, you know.”