CJ Staff Report
After listening to pleas from residents on both sides of the issues, London City Council on Monday passed, by a 4-2 vote, the second reading of the ordinance banning smo-king in public places.
London thus joins a growing number of central and eastern Kentucky cities that are taking proactive measures to protect non-smokers in what was once the heart of burley tobacco country.
Lexington approved the first indoor smoking ban in Kentucky in 2003. Since then, there have been more than 20 other cities, counties and health departments to pass rules limiting indoor smoking in public places. They include:
• Campbellsville, which approved an indoor smoking ban in June that will take effect in September, according to Mayor Brenda Allen.
• Prestonsburg City Council, which approved on first reading an ordinance banning smoking in all public places last month.
• Paintsville and Pikeville, which have at least partial smoking bans inside city limits.
Despite no anti-smoking laws in Somerset and Pulaski County, several local restaurants have voluntarily gone smoke-free, as has the sprawling Lake Cumberland Region-al Hospital campus.
During the debate over the indoor-smoking law in Campbellsville, the coun-ty health department tested air in nine restaurants and found air quality at most was not what it should be, Mayor Allen said.
"No matter how careful you are about segregating it" with non-smoking areas, "you're still getting that smoke," she told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
London City Attorney Larry Bryson said his city's new ordinance contains a 60-day period for business owners and operators to post no smoking signs and educate their employees. He said this is not a grace period.
“The ordinance goes into effect when it is published,” Bryson said.
The ordinance makes it a misdemeanor to smoke in public places. It will be enforced by the London Police Department and the London Building Inspector.
“If someone is found smoking, the smoker and the business operator would both be subject to the $200 fine in addition to court costs,” Bryson said.
District Court officials said the court cost is $154.
Restaurant and bar owners sometimes exp-ress concerns that indoor smoking bans will hurt business, but Scott Smith, co-owner of Shiloh Roadhouse in London, said he thinks the new rules will be beneficial.
For instance, he anticipates being able to cut costs by not having to staff separate smoking and non-smoking areas. Non-smokers will appreciate being able to get a table more quickly, Smith said.
Smith is planning outdoor patio areas for smokers, which the London ordinance allows.
Studies have found that smoke-free laws don't have an adverse economic effect on restaurants and bars, according to the American Lung Assoc-iation.
After first reading of the London anti-smoking law last month, Councilor Jason Handy who had voted for the law, changed his mind Monday and joined Nancy Vaughn in opposing the second reading.
Vaughn said she opposed the ordinance for personal reasons. Handy, who is general manager of the Hampton Inn off of exit 41, said he didn’t like the idea of the government telling business owners what they had to do. After speaking with Hershel Blanton, Chairman of the Board of the Laurel County Fire Department, concerning the financial impact the ordinance could have on the fire department’s bingo fundraising, he decided to vote against it.
“I don’t feel like we can take a chance,” Handy said. “If this costs me re-election, so be it.”
Blanton said the fire department relies on proceeds from the Bingo Zone for funding. He said the vast majority of the bingo players are smokers. If the bingo players are not permitted to smoke in London, there are multiple bingo options up to 30 minutes from London.
“If we lose smoking, people will migrate to where they can smoke,” Blanton said, displaying a petition against the ordinance signed by 212 bingo players from a recent session at the Bingo Zone. “Gambling and smoking go together, just like drinking and smoking.”
Blanton said the department covers 7,400 households, which includes about 20,000 people.
“Insurance rates would double without the Laurel County Fire Department,” Blanton said.
The firefighters sought an exemption for the Bingo Zone. London Mayor Troy Rudder said that would be up to the council to propose. None of the council members raised the issue at Monday’s meeting.
Local attorney Joe T. Roberts said he owns three pieces of property in London, including the one on South Main Street in which his office is located.
“I don’t think this it is right,” Roberts said of the ordinance. “I’m 100 percent against it. If I had known about this, I wouldn’t have spent all this money. I would have put it out in the county.”
Roberts said similar ordinances in Lexington led him to quit eating in those restaurants when he is in Lexington.
“This is personal to me,” Roberts said.
Local oral surgeon Dr. Steve Anderson said tobacco helped pay for his education, but he said his experience treating patients with oral and esophageal cancer has strengthened his support for anti-smoking laws.
“Second-hand smoke is a cancer-causing agent,” Anderson said. “There is no safe level of exposure.”
The ordinance that bans smoking in all public places in London will go into effect upon publication in the London Sentinel-Echo. The ordinance is expected to be published in Friday’s edition.
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Dean Manning, staff writer for the London Sentinel-Echo and the Associated Press contrib-uted to this report, which also includes excerpts from the Lexington Herald-Leader.
