In the same week I read that drinking is to be banned from the streets, the council brings out a campaign to ban smoking from clubs and bars.

At the same time, the attempt to sell Brighton as the City of Culture continues.

Not much great culture is going to come out of a city where the wildest thing a person can do in public is have a herbal tea and a cinammon muffin.

The only two great novels ever written about (or at least around) this city, Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, are littered with fags and empty beer bottles.

Decadence is this city's main asset and its cultural history. Not a Brighton Fringe programme about it - but the real thing.

Environment councillor Gill Mitchell has said the drinking ban will not affect "ordinary people who want to have a quiet drink".

What about the extraordinary people who populate Brighton and make it distinctive from any other damn city you wish to mention?

-Jay Clifton, Brighton