Tim Martin, the colourful founder of JD Wetherspoon, risked an outcry yesterday by claiming that “manic measures” to keep teenagers out of pubs were not the answer to tackling Britain’s binge-drinking culture.

Mr Martin, whose Wetherspoon chain runs 670 pubs, insisted that he was not calling for a reduction in licensing laws, but he believed the Government was misreading the problem of teenage drinking if it thought the answer was to fine pubs that mistakenly let them in.

Mr Martin said: “When 16-year-olds cannot get into pubs they’ll just get alcohol – often bought for them by their parents – and go to the park or market square instead. They’ll drink without adult supervision and more often than not, instead of relatively low-alcohol drinks such as beer, stronger drinks like vodka will come out.”

He added: “I’m not saying I think 17-year-olds should be let into pubs. I don’t know what the solution is, but the Government is misreading the problem. There’s an illusion of action, but it’s having no effect.

“Who hasn’t had a drink by the time they’re 18? . . . the real problem is our culture; the problem is the England cricket team win the Ashes and go off drinking for three days and all that happens is everyone thinks it’s great.”

Mr Martin wrote in Wetherspoon’s in-house magazine last month that by trying to tackle underage drinking, politicians were making the problem worse. He said that staff were turning away many people over 20 because they were scared of being caught out by trading standards officers constantly testing landlords by sending 15 or 16-year-olds into pubs.

Pubs caught out in this way face heavy fines or the threat of having their licence revoked. Mr Martin’s 22-year-old daughter was turned away from a Wetherspoon pub recently because she did not have ID.

His comments yesterday came as Wetherspoon revealed the first signs that the smoking ban recently introduced in England and Wales is beginning to hit business.

Shares in the group fell 5.9 per cent, or 35½p to 562½p, as it said that after an initial sales spurt in July when the ban was first introduced, like-for-like sales growth in August fell back to 1.1 per cent. That is five times lower than the average over the previous 12 months.

The setback overshadowed the full-year results, which showed that annual pretax profits rose 6 per cent to £62 million in the year to July.

John Hutson, the Wetherspoon chief executive, acknowledged that he was “cautious” over the prospects for the coming year. He said: “I expect what we will see in England and Wales will be the sort of experience we had in Scotland. Initially, there were strong sales because everyone wanted to see what it’s like in a pub without smoking. Then sales fell back for a few months before eventually recovering again.

“If we can achieve 1.1 per cent for the rest of the year, then we will be happy. You have to remember it still means we are growing sales. Some analysts were expecting flat-to-zero growth.”

Mr Hutson said he was encouraged that food sales were holding up and now accounted for a third of all revenue. The group serves 250,000 breakfasts and 400,000 cups of coffee a week. It also recently became the biggest seller of Pimm’s in the UK, serving nearly 1.8 million glasses in the past year.

Mr Hutson said: “Pimm’s is not just for toffs. It’s a great product and more people should be enjoying it.”

Turnover across Wetherspoon in the year to July 29 rose 5 per cent to £888.5 million The group is paying a total dividend of 12p per share, nearly three times the 4.7p per share payout a year ago.

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