LOOK into my eyes – and look forward to a future without cigarettes.
Punters at a Preston pub are being offered the chance to stub out their smoking habit so they will not have to stand outside and have a fag when the habit is banned in bars next year.
The Jazz Bar, on Tithebarn Street in Preston city centre, believes nearly three-quarters of its customers will be targeted by the ban and wants to help save them a fortune.
The Yesteryear Pub Company, which owns the bar, is offering to pay for its first "ten pack" of customers to be treated by trained hypnotist Dave Holland and has negotiated a discount rate for fellow regulars.
Landlord John Tarpey said: "When they announced the ban was coming in, a lot of our regulars were upset because they felt their freedom to choose was being taken away.
"A lot of them are so stubborn they probably would stand outside and smoke, but we have some older customers who do not want to be stood there in the cold and the wet stubbing out cigarettes."
Customer Mick Deverson, of Fishwick, has been smoking for more than 40 years and is willing to give hypnosis a try.
He said: "I have tried patches and that did not work, but my doctor says I need to give up because I am asthmatic, so I am going to give this a go.
"I do not agree with this ban and, if this does not work on me, I will stand outside the pub and smoke if I have too."
Dave Holland, of Hindley Green, near Wigan, says he can place messages in your subconscious which will flash up the number 19, the amount of chemicals in each cigarette, when you so much as touch one.
The hypnotist said: "You can place all kinds of imagery in people's minds, I can make them believe that there are maggots crawling over the cigarettes.
"The mind is a very powerful thing and if someone wants to quit, this is proven to help."
FURTHER LINKS
www.hypnosis.org.uk
www.about-hypnosis.com
www.giveupsmoking.co.uk
www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk to find out which of the chain's pubs are non-smoking.