This morning I reported on the kiss-in set to happen at a pub in London's Soho district following the ejection of a gay couple for kissing this week. The pub, John Snow, apparently kicked patrons out and locked its doors early this evening to avoide the protest:

More than 700 people said they would attend a protest, mobilised on Facebook, at 1900 BST on Friday.

The John Snow pub and its owners have not commented on the incident.

At 1640 BST, an onlooker Richard Lally, 26, said: "About 40 minutes ago, people started piling out of the pub. The doors were then locked,

"They won't let anyone back in," Mr Lally from Clapham, south London, added.

The Guardian, which was running a live blog, posted these two entries:

4.31pm: Just as we start scaling down our coverage, there's an important development. It's become clear that the John Snow pub has closed its doors, presumably fearful of the avalanche of snogging that was about to descend upon it. One Twitter user, who works opposite, reports that a TV crew has arrived and is "filming the locked door whilst bar staff peer from upstairs window".

4.56pm: The Press Association has managed to get a few words with Thomas Paget, the licence holder of the pub. He again refused to comment on the row. Asked whether the pub had been the victim of a "misunderstanding", he told PA: "I don't have anything to say."

The PA report says he refused to say whether he had been in the pub at the time of the alleged incident, whether it is pub policy not to allow people to kiss on the premises or whether the pub would be closed ahead of the planned protest. No one in the brewery's Tadcaster head office was available for comment, it said.