Pub’s attempt to skirt smoking ban fails

A British pub owner’s inventive plan to get around the UK smoking ban that goes into effect Sunday has suffered a setback.

Bob Beach, the landlord of The Wellington Arms in Southampton tried citing diplomatic immunity by turning his pub into the embassy for a tiny Caribbean island.

However, the Foreign Office has decided that Redonda is not classified as a country and therefore can’t have an embassy.

Beach had his pub the British consulate for uninhabited Redonda, which lies off the coast of Antigua. Redonda was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493.

As “foreign soil” it would have been exempt from the smoking ban.