I suspect that you know full well that there are very few non-smoking pubs in England. I live in one of the biggest cities in the country and I don’t know of a single pub that has a total ban on smoking. As for starting one, that is well beyond my financial means, even if I thought such a venture would be profitable. Starting your own business because you don’t like the way the existing ones work is rarely a practical option for most people.

As for pubs and restaurants, they are public places in so much that members of the public do not require permission to enter them. The owner can ask you to leave of course, just as the manager of a supermarket can, but they do not deny entry by default as the owner of an office or private residence does. Hence why the word pub has its origins in the phrase “public house”.

If village pubs are turned into private residences, is that really a problem? That’s just a display of lack of demand in one market being changed to meet a lack of supply in another. I don’t have an issue with that, and I suspect that there will always be enough business in any village to require at least one pub. Even if trade falls by 20%, in a lot of places that will only mean one pub out of the five in the village closing.

A private members club is not a public place. A restaurant is a privately owned business, as is a pub. You have no rights under the law to entry and can be ejected.

If you don’t like pubs with smoking, find one that doesn’t, or alternatively, start one.

Plenty of country pubs are already at the point where pubcos are considering converting them to private residences. A further drop in trade (20% in Ireland) will see even more going. I hope you remember that when even more villages become dormitories.