VISITORS to a Windermere hotel can breathe in the clean air of their rooms as well as the fresh air of the fells after it became one of the first non-smoking hotels in the county.

Managing director at the Langdale Chase Hotel Thomas Noblett told the Gazette the ban was implemented on Monday as he looked to follow in the footsteps of European counterparts.

"I've just got back from Ireland where all the bars have a no-smoking policy and it's a pleasure to walk into them," he said.

"I enjoy the occasional cigarette and there's a right place and a right time where smokers are wanted.

"If someone goes into a room where someone's smoking, that's when we get our complaints."

The ban on smoking will make it healthier for staff working behind the bar as they will no longer have to inhale the smoke from other people's cigarettes.

Mr Noblett said it should not have any effect on business: "If you go to the airport people comply with the rules on the aircraft. Even if it's for 12 hours people accept it, which I think is right.

"I don't think it will put people off and you've got to do it if you want people to come into a clean air environment.

"The ones that do leave might encourage other people to replace them and create a more happy environment with everyone having the same train of thought."

Another of the reasons why Mr Noblett is implementing the ban is that even though only 25 per cent of the population smokes, it affects the whole of the hotel. "When people light up, especially with cigars and pipes, that smoke can travel for 20 yards around them and create a whole plume of smoke if they leave and people walk in, they might think the hotel is not clean."

A recent survey carried out by Cumbria Tourist Board revealed that 40 per cent of hotel and bed and breakfast owners thought a smoking ban would have a positive impact, compared with eight per cent who thought it would have a negative effect. Fifty one per cent said they would wait to see what happened. The tourist board also confirmed Langdale Chase Hotel was "certainly among the first" to impose a smoking ban, but it was uncertain if the hotel was the first.

l Drinkers in Kendal's JD Wetherspoon pub will be able to enjoy a smoke-free atmosphere from next year as the company looks to ban customers from lighting up in all its 650 chains.

The move will mean all Wetherspoon pubs will be smoke-free two years ahead of the Government's proposed ban on smoking in pubs, set to come into force in 2008.

Spokesman for JD Wetherspoon Eddie Gershon said the company was putting its own plans in place: "Primarily, there is an increase in the number of people giving up smoking and a significant number of people are staying away because of smoke and we feel, already having non-smoking areas, it's time to go that one step further."

Mr Gershon said the company was confident the ban would not put off drinkers.

"People will get the message and, if they do smoke, members of staff will tell them they can't smoke in here," he added.

"We are giving people one-and-a-half years notice so there is plenty of time to tell people what we are doing and we feel it is the right thing to do."

Smoking will be banned in all JD Wetherspoon pubs by May 2006 and a selection of 60 chains will ban smoking from May 4 this year - although none of them are in Cumbria.