AN award-winning Otley businessman says he will have to shut up shop - if tough new advertising laws are brought in.

James Barber, of Barber's Tobacconists, this year's best UK tobacconist, says he will have to close if new laws surrounding tobacco advertising come in later this year.

Mr Barber, who has run the shop for 22 years and is the fourth generation of his family to run the Otley tobacconist, says the major part of his business is run on the internet - where the proposed new laws will bite.

The government is currently well ahead on its white paper on tobacco advertising which will effectively ban advertising on the internet and also put new restrictions on mail order.

Mr Barber, who counts amongst his customers, Sir James Savile, said: "The government White Paper on tobacco advertising could mean the end of the road for tobacco in this country.

"It feels like through legislation they are driving us underground.

"The white paper wouldn't just stop me advertising, but it would make the mail order and website side of the business almost impossible."

The restrictions will mean anyone who wants to order cigars or any tobacco product through the post will have to do it in writing instead of just over the telephone.

Mr Barber, whose business is currently 60 per cent through his website, says he will definitely close the Otley shop if the paper becomes law as expected sometime in the summer.

"I don't want to move away, but I will certainly have to close the shop down in Otley and possibly move the mail order business to Belguim or Holland, I am getting prepared for it now."

And he believes the government has got it all wrong in proposing to stop the advertising of tobacco, pipes, cigars and cigarettes on the internet.

Dismissing the proposals as 'rubbish' he added: "It's all because they don't want children to be able to look at cigars on the internet, when they can already look at porn, it's just rubbish."

He added because so much tobacco was being brought into the country illegally, the shop could not hope to cope with sales of smuggled goods at places like car boot sales.

Mr Barber, who in the past has backed national campaigns to stamp out tobacco bootleggers, said: "There is no way I could just survive with the shop, not when so much tobacco is being sold illegally at car boot sales.

"Why they can't put a stop to that when all I have to do is go to any car boot sale and see it on sale is beyond me."

In January, Barbers was named the first tobacconist in Yorkshire to be given the title best tobacconist in the country by the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders Livery Company.

Nominations for the award are made by people in the trade and judges give it to the business considered to offer the best service in the country.