SIR - Let me state my position. I hate cigarette smoking - but not cigarette smokers.

My Dad found it easy to give up - he did it hundreds of times! He finally gave up smoking at 10am on February 29, 1992, when he died, aged 60, from a heart attack caused by smoking from the age of 14.

I do not want to have a meal, drink a pint or be in a meeting where there is cigarette smoke. It smells awful, it hurts my eyes (I wear contact lenses) and it means I have to spend a fortune the next day on dry cleaning my smelly clothes.

This said I find it sad, unfair, pathetic and quite frankly illiberal whenever I see smokers stood outside public buildings in the cold and rain having a fag. I believe the ban on smoking in public buildings to be stupid and nonsense.

Please keep smokers away from me, but do not make them feel pariahs. Give them separate rooms or even their own pubs and clubs where they can willingly kill themselves by indulging their pleasure without being made to feel that they are somehow unworthy people.

Councillor David Ward (Lib-Dem, Idle & Thackley), Clara Road, Bradford