The borough council's environment manager Steve Reynolds told the latest meeting of the corporate strategy overview and scrutiny committee that anti-smoking legislation had been successful in town, although it had also led to an increase in littering.

However, his words have angered local licensees, who say the ban has cost them business.

Kath Duffy, landlady of the Newcastle Packet and president of the Scarborough branch of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, said: "The council might think the ban is wonderful but we don't. Pubs have lost a lot of trade, the summer's not been too bad but the winter when people have to stand out in the cold will really hurt us. We saw a definite drop in trade last winter. People just aren't coming to pubs like they used to before the ban."

Laurin Mainprize, landlady of the Britannia, said: "I reckon business is down 40 per cent on last year. Smoking isn't illegal and people shouldn't have to stand outside in the cold to smoke. Why can't we have smoking and non-smoking establishments so people can make up their own minds?

"The local pub's a dying breed and the ban's one of the main reasons."

And customers agree.

Lindsay White, a regular in the Black Swan, said: "My husband's a smoker and he just won't come to the pub any more – he says there's no pleasure if he can't have a smoke with his pint."

Her friend Janine Welsh added: "I don't smoke but I still think it's wrong – in winter it's absolutely freezing, why would anyone want to stand out in that?"

The Campaign for Real Ale says 36 pubs close every week in the UK, and though the credit crunch and cheap supermarket beer prices are also causes of closures, landlords are adamant the smoking ban is a major factor.

Campaigning group Freedom to Choose has raised a million-name petition to fight the new law, which was introduced on July 1 2007. Its aim is ultimately to collect between five and seven million signatures.

The group's Helen Daniels told the Evening News it was not just non-smokers who objected to the ban.

"We're not a pro-smoking organisation – in fact a third of our members are non-smokers who think the ban is unfair.

"I cannot agree the ban has been hailed as a success – business failures, unemployment, increased stress, denormalisation of citizens, community groups broken up, the elderly in total social isolation – to name but a few effects of the ban.