City to keep its pavement cafe curfew

RESTAURANTS' hopes of offering more open-air drinking and dining late into the evening in the Capital are set to be dashed in the wake of the smoking ban.

Restaurateurs and bar owners are campaigning to have the 9pm curfew on tables and chairs being put out on pavements lifted.

They say the move is essential to Edinburgh's standing as a cosmopolitan European city.

But city officials are urging councillors to stick to their guns after taking advice from the police.

The police fear that leaving tables and chairs outside restaurants and bars until 11pm would simply encourage smokers to congregate in the street.

That, they said, would lead to more problems with noise disturbing neighbours and pavements getting overcrowded.

Andrew Holmes, the council's director of city development, said inspecting the pavement cafe areas would put a strain on the council's resources.

But Tony Crolla, owner of Vittoria's, on Leith Walk, who has led the pavement cafe campaign, said: "It's ridiculous we have to chase people away as early as 8.30pm in the summer when the sun is splitting the sky."