A TOWN centre pub will provide the unlikely setting for special sessions to help smokers stub out their nicotine cravings.

As part of a NHS Smoke Stop campaign to encourage 2,700 smokers in Bournemouth to kick their habits, seven free weekly sessions will start at the Moon in the Square next week.

Bournemouth Smoke Stop manager Julia Kilminster-Biggs said: "It has been proven that giving up cigarettes is more difficult than kicking heroin.

"We are never judgmental but have the tools to help smokers overcome their cravings."

As well as providing nicotine patches and pills to help conquer cravings, tutors will hand out tips and techniques.

Julia said: "After the weekly advice sessions we will provide follow-up help.

"People taking part in our course are four times more likely to stay off cigarettes.".

Julia said the Moon in the Square had been chosen as a venue for Smoke Stop sessions because it has a no-smoking area.

The chairman of the Wetherspoon pub chain Tim Martin has called on the government to ban smoking in all pubs by January 2006 as the best way forward for the pub industry and better, in the long term, than a piecemeal ban by some local authorities.

For a place on Wednesday's (October 13) Smoke Stop at 6pm phone 01202 436866.

First published: October 7