Ooh it was in a broadsheet, must be true ;-)
I phoned Edinburgh council, "rubbish" they said, it's not even been proposed seriously. That's according to the traffic management dept, who would be the ones to put it in place if it was going to happen.
That was down to the smoking ban laws in scotland though, which have been in place for a year now. They were just enforcing the law, and it wasn't Mel Smith (the actor in question) who'd fall foul of the law either, it would be the venue. The council couldn't turn a blind eye to it as he'd said he was going to do it very publically, so they'd have gotten into trouble for not enforcing it, they couldn't just ignore a law that they didn't invent and are required to enforce. He forced them to take action very publically, in short it was a very successful publicity stunt for Smith as he forced the council to take action in the public eye and got the papers to cover it. The hysterical nonsense was entirely in the papers and media, surprise surprise, with their usual totally unrealistic slant on a cut and dried situation, putting the blame on the wrong people.