Euro MP backs ex-pub landlord Paul Brown (From York Press)

Euro MP backs ex-pub landlord Paul Brown

10:00am Friday 6th March 2009 in Search By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter

THE York pub landlord sacked for smoking in his bar has now padlocked the window of his first-floor flat – as he won strong support from Yorkshire MEP Godfrey Bloom.

Paul Brown said he was locking bars that can be swung in front of the window to protect the property from any intruders who might use a temporary scaffolding staircase to get in.

Mr Brown and his wife, Carol, have been using the stairs to get into the flat above the Brown Cow, in Hope Street, off Walmgate, since he was sacked for gross misconduct last week by Samuel Smith’s Brewery.

The brewery’s action came after Mr Brown was caught smoking in his bar by a licensing officer and fined. He says he had only lit up after closing the pub early one evening, having wrongly believed that smoking legislation did not apply in a shut pub.

He has vowed not to leave the flat for the time being, even though a deadline set by the brewery to quit has passed and he now risks legal action.

He said he would not go until the brewery had returned a £1,000 bond which he paid it when he became manager a couple of years ago.

Mr Bloom, the outspoken UKIP MEP, has now thrown his support behind the landlord, saying he thought the reaction to him smoking in the bar from both City of York Council and the brewery had been over the top and he should simply have been given a reprimand.

“What is England coming to?” he asked, claiming that council staff and police had better things to do in dealing with “mayhem” in the city centre late at night than catching a publican smoking in his own bar.

He revealed he had written to brewery boss Humphrey Smith to say the decision to sack Mr Brown “looks like a horrible own goal from a big brewery”.

He told Mr Smith that UKIP was working very hard and going to some expense to support the British pub and Yorkshire beer, and asked the brewery boss to “share his views” on the matter before it became a cause celebre, adding: “It is the council I am after, not the brewery.”

The brewery has consistently declined to comment, but a letter from its solicitors told him earlier this week that Mr Brown’s right of occupation of the residential premises ended at the same time as his employment terminated on Wednesday last week, and he was therefore occupying the building as a trespasser.