Ref. 12390/1GAZETTE & HERALD: EMERY Gates' new controversy-dogged caf Boswells has stubbed out its unpopular smoking area in a dramatic U-turn just days after opening for business in Chippenham.

The caf sparked up a row with local traders and customers at the shopping centre when it decided to include five smoking tables in non-smoking Emery Gate.

Company director Nick Burn admitted it was not until he actually spoke to customers and traders, after the caf opened its doors on Friday, that he was able to gauge the huge groundswell of anti-smoking opposition in the town.

He added that the company might have kept the Chippenham caf's smoking area if it had attracted many customers at the weekend.

As it was, not many smokers were drawn to the cafe at the weekend.

"We talked extensively with our new clientele, and with our fellow traders within the scheme about our smoking policy, and have decided to abandon the smoking area with immediate effect," said Mr Burn.

"Commercially we are potentially losing out on smoking customers, but have decided that the desires of the majority should come first.

"We hope that smokers will still visit us, but they will just have to pop outside to light up after their coffee.

"We did not appreciate the extent of the anti-smoking feeling in Chippenham, and are very willing to put our hands up, accept we got it wrong, and move on.

"Listening to feedback and views from the public is a priority for us, and we react accordingly.

"We have smoking areas in most of our branches, but we didn't realise how long it took to stamp out smoking in Emery Gate.

"Ultimately we realised it just wasn't worth upsetting everyone."

Boswells is owned by the Burn family from Swindon who also have a caf in Swindon and will soon open a branch in Trowbridge.

The company has nine cafes, half of which have smoking areas.

Mr Burn said that the storm created by the inclusion of a smoking area in the Chippenham caf has prompted a rethink, and may lead the company to consider making all its future branches non-smoking.

He added that Boswells' decision to abandon the caf's smoking area is a tribute to the company's flexibility and showed it was not too big to react to what people want locally.

"I was recently speaking to the managing director about the future, if and when we open more stores, and we agreed that we may use this as an example and go for non-smoking," he said.

"I'm surprised pubs don't already have smoking and non-smoking rooms, but I think it's possibly tipping that way. I think the decision in Dublin to phase smoking out of pubs in the city centre has set the first stone."

The caf is positioned in the former circular meeting area outside Somerfield supermarket.

The area has been converted into a raised seating area, with a large counter serving hot and cold meals and drinks.

Mr Burn said the smokers he approached were very understanding when he told them that the smoking area might be closed down.

"They said if they wanted to smoke they could always nip outside the back of the shopping centre," he said.

"They understood we were trying to cater for them, but also that there was a strong backlash against smoking from everyone else."

A spokesman for the shopping centre, which is owned by Lone Eagle Retail, said: "We're delighted with the decision because we didn't like the bad feeling among our customers."

The site first came to public attention last year, when former tenants and take-away Salad Select were given notice to quit by Emery Gate.

Despite strong public support for the take-away, Emery Gate would not renew Salad Select's lease which had to make way for the sit-down cafe.