Painter fuming over fine for smoking in own van

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — A painter and decorator has been fined for breaching Britain's smoking ban -- by puffing on a cigarette in his own van, he said Friday.

Gordon Williams, 58, of Llanafan in west Wales, was told by officials that his van was classed as a workplace and so fell foul of the ban, brought in last year to cover enclosed public places but not private areas.

He was fined 30 pounds, even though he says he was not working and was on the way to buy his wife some teabags at the time.

"I appreciate that a driver of a coach or a bus can't smoke at the wheel because obviously, that is the law of the land," he said.

"Of course, there are tools and things in the van but a barrister would carry about documents in a briefcase in his own car -- this is no...