Georgica – owner of Riley’s snooker halls and the Megabowl and Tenpin bowling alley brands – blamed a fall in sales on a “wishy-washy” trading period brought on by the Scottish smoking ban.

Like for like sales at Riley’s were down 2.1 per cent for the fourth quarter, and 2.9 per cent for the year. Christmas trading was down 6.6 per cent.

Tenpin suffered a 0.5 per cent drop in like for like sales over the year, despite a late revival in the fourth quarter – which saw a 1.7 per cent increase in sales and a 5 per cent increase over Christmas.

“Trading at Tenpin has improved as the year has progressed and the board expects a continuation of this trend,” the company said in a statement.

“Trading at Riley’s was, from time to time, a little wishy-washy. During the year trading at Scottish outlets was adversely affected by the smoking ban implemented on March 2006.”

The company is expected to publish its full year results at the end of February together with documents to effect the demerger of Georgica into two separate businesses, Riley’s and Tenpin.