Having got the smokers firmly under the cosh Nanny is....
starting on the drinkers.... Landlords Trisha and Thomas Russell were told to remove the board, which shows an arrow beneath the words: 'The Black Dog, Chilmark, Bar and Restaurant' as it was deemed distracting to motorists. The sign, the size of a sandwich board, was erected two decades ago, as the pub is located away from the main A303 road. The couple, who took over the tenancy four weeks ago were surprised to hear they needed planning permission for the sign and were then shocked to receive an objection from the Highways Agency for their application. A letter from the agency read: "The sign contains several lines of text and is therefore distracting to motorists. "It is also advertising the use of a public house to motorists, potentially providing the temptation to drink and drive while using a long distance trunk route. "No alcohol is allowed to be served or consumed in service stations on motorways as a matter of principle. "We would wish to continue this principle by not encouraging drivers to break their journey in a public house." snip http://tinyurl.com/3gn3zz

This isn't so much an attack on drinkers as health and safety gone mad (again).

Who's next on the list, then? I nominate environmentalist vegetarian Lib-Dem voters. Ship 'em out!

Re: Having got the smokers firmly under the cosh Nanny is...
A letter from the agency read: "The sign contains several lines of text and is therefore distracting to motorists. This does raise an interesting point which has some validity, obviously not so much in relation to a pub advertising its wares. It certainly seems to me that the roads are increasingly littered with more and more signs; no longer are drivers merely told how fast they may drive and which in direction certain places can be found, but are given hectoring messages about how many "casualties" there have been in a certain area, or are reminded not to use their mobile 'phones...and so forth, I've wondered for a while about the desirability of these distractions along our verges and pavements.

My favourite hate is "THINK BIKE!" which litters the verges in Lincolnshire. My favourite is an unofficial official-looking sign which says "stealth cameras".