The credit crunch and the smoking ban have been blamed for a series of pub closures in a Kent town.

Yates wine bar in Margate’s Cecil Square closed last week after eight years of trade - the third pub in the town to shut in recent months, following The Cottage in the High Street and The Wellington.

The popular chain is the latest victim of dwindling bar sales across the UK brought on by the smoke-free laws and increasing prices – its parent corporation, Laurel Pub Company, sold 293 of its sites to two new firms and put 90 loss-making pubs, including Yates Margate, into administration as a result.

Head of Thanet’s pub chain Thorley Taverns, Frank Thorley, sympathised with the closure and pointed out that Alistair Darling’s new excise duty was having a worse impact than the smoking ban.

He said: “We don’t take any satisfaction from its closure. It’s the loss of a popular and well established pub. Trade is very difficult at this particular time and the smoking ban has had an impact but the excise duty rise, under the present circumstances, is just ridiculous.

“It’s not going to stop binge drinking; very few people binge drink in pubs purely because if we let people get drunk and misbehave, we’d lose our licence.

“It’s off-sales that they should have concentrated on because more and more people are drinking at home.

“As far as the closure of Yates’s though, this is a national problem and is not specific to Margate. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the situation.”