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“I believe momentum is building in the Northern Kentucky area for smoke-free policy,” said Tom Cahill of LiveWell Florence, a group that advocates for building healthy environments, systems and behaviors in the city. “I encourage Florence and other communities to help stand up for cleaner air.”

Additionally, some cities and municipalities in Northern Kentucky have taken matters to limit indoor smoking into their own hands. Dayton and Bellevue are the only two Northern Kentucky cities to have passed a citywide indoor smoking ban.

Charlie Cleves is the mayor of Bellevue, which passed a city-wide smoke free ordinance in early February. It will be enforced starting May 15.

“To get our kids hooked on [nicotine] when we’re trying to get the adults off of it is just a crime to me, to be having people do something that can kill them,” Cleves said.

But not all Kentuckians are in agreement. Some business owners in Northern Kentucky told LINK nky they fear smoking bans will lower revenues and push customers away.

‘We’re lucky if we’re making one dollar a drink’

After Dayton began enforcing its smokefree ordinance in November 2022, Lisa Mills – the manager of Rose Room, one of only two bars in the city – said the dive bar lost more than half of their customers.

“It kind of got shut out,” she said. “Everyone went to Bellevue and Newport.”

To make up for the drop in revenue, Mills said the bar has had to cut the cost of beer to $2.75 to draw customers back in.

“Everybody else is $3.50,” she said. “We’re lucky if we’re making one dollar a drink.”

But research – including that from the National Cancer Institute and the CDC – often shows that smoking bans do not adversely affect economic outcomes for businesses. The same has been true for the parts of Kentucky that restrict smoking, according to Breathe Easy – in fact, the group said the bans can end up having a positive economic effect.

Additionally, according to Breathe Easy presentation, tobacco smoking exposure causes $2.79 billion in lost productivity costs every year. Kentucky has spent $1.92 billion every year on healthcare due to tobacco smoke exposure, Cooper said. Each household in the state pays $1,158 in taxes to cover healthcare costs due to smoking.

But Dayton is small, Mills contends, and customers can easily travel to nearby cities that don’t have smoking bans instead.

“I mean statewide it wouldn’t be that bad because people don’t have no choice but to come out,” she said. “Don’t just do one little city that’s so tiny with two little bars that don’t even serve food.”

Some patrons haven’t adapted to the change either.

“We have people that might sneak and smoke… they’re sticking their cigarette butts up on the counters,” Mills said. “They sneak and smoke in [the bathroom], so when you gotta close the bar, the girls gotta stick their hands in the urinals to get those cigarette butts out because people don’t listen.”

Dayton Mayor Ben Baker has publicly touted his city’s decision as a result of a “discussion on healthy workplaces” for employees.

Baker has also said that the city surveyed Northern Kentucky residents and found 85% of voters supported a smoking ban. But at a Dayton City Council meeting on Sept. 6 of last year, attendees seemed to be split on the issue – with eight speakers showing support for the smoke-free ordinance and seven raising concerns.

Jacoba Wells, a Dayton resident, said she opposed the ban “for many reasons” but, most of all, voiced concerns about the origins of the proposal – which she said “did not originate from Dayton.” The law, like the Highland Heights proposal, is based on a model ordinance submitted by Breathe Easy.

She was also worried about how it might affect the city’s businesses, echoing Mills’ sentiment by arguing that residents will bring their business to nearby smoking-friendly cities.

“This is going to be bad for Dayton businesses and Dayton citizens,” she said. “They are going to lose their jobs.”

Others at the September meeting pushed Dayton’s city council to vote in favor of the ordinance, – saying it would improve public health and increase foot traffic.

Julie Kirkpatrick, the president and CEO of Meet NKY – Northern Kentucky’s official tourism and convention services bureau – said the ordinance is personally important to her because of her now 19-year-old daughter, who developed a vaping addiction when she was 14 that resulted in her almost “losing her life.” theirs. After the Health Department presented Cleves with statistics on how smoking contributed to heart attack and cancer rates, he was inspired to make the decision to protect Bellevue residents’ health.

“Everyone’s going to have to do it sooner or later. The health benefits are way too much to ignore,” Cleves said, adding that some residents’ health “doesn’t allow for them to be in an atmosphere where [they] feel like [they’ve] smoked two cigarettes when [they’ve] been in there for an hour.”

The ordinance was a popular decision for most Bellevue residents, as well.

“There was only a total of 14 people that were against it and that actually spoke to me,” Cleves said. “The people that came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘This is great’ – there was 100.”

Although Bellevue’s smoke-free ordinance won’t be enforced until May 15, the ban has already gained traction in the city.

“There was only about five places in Bellevue that allowed smoking to begin with,” Cleves said. “[Most] places have all come on board and enforce [the rules] already.” there was people in there ordering more expensive drinks and families come in and it just made it so the places all do more business now,” Cleves said. “The Bellevue Veterans Club is very important to the city, and we do not want to harm them. They’re going to find out there’s a whole lot of people that would like to go there that don’t because they don’t want the smoking.”

Although most have been quick to hop on board, Cleves said that the Bellevue Vets Club has yet to prohibit smoking out of fear of losing business. Anticipating that businesses would have such concerns, Cleves said he observed the state of smoking bans in other nearby cities, speaking with mayors on how they made their decision and local business owners on how the bans impacted their sales.

Patrons at bars in other cities have echoed Cleves’ sentiments that they would continue showing support to their favorite businesses, even if they went smoke-free.

“I don’t need to smoke wherever I go, but I like to smoke and it makes doing things more fun for me, so it definitely is a reason I come here instead of other places,” said Schultz.

While Peterson and Schultz don’t agree with a smoking ban and feel that the decision to allow smoking should be left for businesses to decide, they said they would still return to KJ’s Pub even if a ban were put in place.

‘Everyone’s going to have to do it

sooner or later’

The smoking ban in Bellevue was introduced shortly after Dayton began enforcing

“The facts were that once [businesses] cleared out the few people that hung around there all day and drank beer and smoked cigarettes for a long time, then

Jacquelyn Peterson and Mark Schultz have been regulars at KJ’s Pub in Crescent Springs, a smoke-friendly business, for a few years. They say they like coming to the bar to smoke, listen to live music and hang out with friends.

“I know the people that work here and I know some of the people that come here every weekend and I would come back for them,” Peterson said.

Some business owners in Northern Kentucky have made the decision to ban smok-

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