Government, healthcare, restaurant, and community representatives all participated in a celebration at Lexington City Hall Thursday. It was in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the City’s smoke-free ordinance.
In July of 2003, Lexington became the first city in the state to ban indoor smoking in public places. Mayor Linda Gorton called it one of the most important, if not THE most important ordinance passed in the last two decades. She said it’s saved countless lives.
University of Kentucky Nursing Professor Ellen Hahn led the effort. Now 58 Kentucky communities have smoke-free laws. Hahn said, if the state general assembly passed a strong law with no exceptions, the impact would be multifold.
“If we could do that we would see dramatic cost savings and lives saved. We would. But, I just don’t, I don’t see it,” said Hahn.
Hahn noted tobacco growers understood the dangers of second-hand smoke and were at the table 20 years ago. Today, she added the tobacco manufacturing industry still carries weight in Frankfort.
Hahn said one of many studies showed smoking among adults dropped 32% some 14 months after the law was in effect.
In 2009, the University of Kentucky became a tobacco-free campus. Former UK President Lee Todd said, at that time, student ambassadors approached anybody smoking outside a building on campus.
“And they were actually training them in a non-confrontational way to explain to them, this is kind of not supposed to happen. She had another group that would actually go around campus and find out where the cigarette butts were around the campus. So, they’d know to stalk it out there and catch these people,” said Todd.
Lexington’s smoke-free ordinance was challenged by a lawsuit shortly after its enactment. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the ordinance in 2004. The local order was strengthened in 2014 when e-cigarettes, considered addictive and popular among youth, were added. Currently, nearly 60 communities in the Commonwealth have smoke-free laws. Hahn said three small towns in northern Kentucky just passed ordinances in the last few months.
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