THREE grannies and their friends - just the kind of refined people any bar would love to grace their premises.

But not at Flares, the theme pub in York, as the "ladies of a certain age" discovered when they arrived for a Christmas drink.

According to the doorman, the decorous group of seven were cannabis smokers.

"We asked him, do we look as if we take drugs. We thought he was joking," said grandmother Margaret Stone, 50.

"But he was serious."

Nothing that Margaret, grandmothers Sharon Reeves, 46, and Sandra Reily, 45, and the rest of the party of smartly-dressed hotel employees from Acomb said could convince the doorstaff that they were perfectly respectable law-abiding members of society.

And even though they have been having their Christmas drinks every year at Flares, this year they had to go elsewhere.

"It was absolutely ridiculous," said Mrs Stone. "It spoiled our night."

The reason for their non-admission to Flares - they were wearing tinsel round their necks on the Thursday before Christmas.

Mrs Stone said the doorman told them a group of women wearing tinsel had been smoking cannabis at another drinking spot and therefore the seven were not allowed in.

The evening in the city centre had begun at The Windmill at about 7pm. They had no trouble there at gaining admission, or at the Nag's Head, or at Reflex, or at the Old Orleans.

It was only when they approached Flares to finish the evening off did trouble begin.

They faced the prospect of their merrymaking ending there and then, when the door staff warned them that word would be radioed to every other bar in the city centre that they were unwelcome.

But when door staff at Nexus saw and heard what was happening just up the road at Flares, they immediately invited the seven ladies through their doors, and there they stayed for two hours with not a hint of trouble.

A spokeswoman for Flares' parent company, Mitchells & Butlers, said: "It is policy for door staff - who are contracted from company-nominated and approved suppliers - to respond to information passed on by both the police and personnel from other local licensed premises.

"On this occasion, the head doorman in question was responding to information from the police and refused entry to the party in question based on this information. It is our priority to be vigilant, diligent and to protect our licence at all times."