NO matter the subject - football, politics, religion, whatever - bar rooms are full of opinions and loud voices.

And the voices were as loud as ever yesterday as drinkers dissected Government plans to widen anti-tobacco laws.

Smokers sat with non-smokers as the debate got more and more heated in the television room of the Darlington East End Club and Institute.

Everyone had an opinion, and even the television perched high in the corner seemed to want to have its say.

The Racing Channel was showing the 2.50 from Wolverhampton and there was a horse called Smoking Star.

"You see, there's a sign," said one regular, as he drew enthusiastically on his cigarette. Perhaps it was.

The horse wasn't placed, though, and the race was won by Andastorygoeswithit. Perhaps one does.

The story goes, according to the drinkers, that the Government thinks it is a good idea to ban smoking in every public place.

Smoking costs the NHS an estimated £1.7bn a year, but, although it wants to cut tobacco use, the Treasury receives about £8bn a year in tax from sales. The Government then thinks a complete ban might be too restrictive, and identifies restaurants and pubs that sell food as more legitimate targets.

But after another change of heart - or a change of Health Secretary, to be precise - it will be announced tomorrow that private clubs will also be targeted.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt is expected to widen the ban to membership clubs, such as workingmen's clubs, golf and other sports clubs and gentlemen's clubs. In the East End Club, in Neasham Road, people were less than impressed with the idea.

"If this club was totally no-smoking, I would not come in," says Steve Williamson, lighting up as he plays dominoes. "Pubs and clubs would lose a fortune if they banned smoking completely. They would lose half the people."

Jim Meaney is not smoking - he quit "four years past July 16" - but still has sympathy with those who do.

He says: "Why should they be stopped? I'm an ex-smoker and could have one at the drop of a hat, but it does not bother me that people smoke in here."

A drinking friend - another reformed nicotine-addict - suggests that the previously mooted ban for food establishments went far enough.

He says: "This is going a little bit to the extreme. As long as there are extraction machines which are reasonably new, there is no bother."

Another regular, a non-smoker all his life, chooses to socialise in this room too.

He says: "I just move away from people who smoke, but I would still be in their company. If smoke was being blown directly in my face, I might have a problem, but I think we can co-exist.

"The problem is pubs and clubs - especially ones like this - would be badly damaged by such a ban."

Loud voices and opinions there might have been, but for once they seemed to be shouting the same thing.

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