Y Pentan on New Street and the Leeswood on Wrexham Street have been closed for at least two months, with the Britannia Inn, also on Wrexham Street following close behind. While the Bridge Inn on King Street is trading, it is being advertised by Admiral Taverns as a 'business opportunity'.

Elsewhere in the county the Red Lion in Northop has been empty for some months.

Landlords in Mold's other pubs say they are doing well, but regulars of those which have closed speak of departed landlords having complained about breweries enforcing high rents, while others fear the smoking ban has signalled the death knell for small pubs.

Mold town and county councillor Robin Guest believes that while all these things have played their part, the decline of the traditional pub has been happening for a long time and is down to sociological changes.

"It's nothing new in the sense pubs have been under pressure as businesses now for 20 to 25 years," he said.

"My personal view is it started with the video recorder and off-licence, when people decided that instead of going out for a night they could rent a video and get some drinks from the off-licence, and have a cheaper night in, with the added film.

"I think over a period of years the habit of going out to the pub as a recreation activity has been on the slide. It's mirrored with the pub quiz league, where the number of teams in the Mold league have dropped from being 40 teams 20 years ago to under 20 now.

"Now there are DVDs and Sky TV and people have more options of what they can watch on the box.

"What people of my generation would have regarded as a typical night out at the cinema, pub or both is not done as much anymore.

"Breweries have not helped, both in terms of the rent level always being pushed up and up, and the attitude of the breweries has always been strangely unhelpful to its tenants and managers.

"To be honest many of us have been surprised there haven't been more closures of pubs at an earlier stage. There seems to be a tipping point recently, whether that's due to the smoking ban I don't know.

"The traditional pub has taken a hammering over the last 20 years, it's not new and has been marked by the increasingly frequent change in licencees. Until a couple of years ago magistrates granted licences and notices were sent to the town council.

"There were comments of concern about this expressed for the last 10 years because of the increasing number of applications just in Mold. The days of one landlord in a pub for years on end are gone.

"People will go for quick one-liners like blaming it on the smoking ban which is rubbish, it's been a changing picture for many years.