A bill exempting cigar bars from local smoking bans in Kentucky passed the House Tuesday 69-24 with bipartisan support and opposition.
House Bill 194 would carve out an exemption in local smoke-free laws for businesses to operate as cigar bars if they meet certain requirements: Businesses would have to hold a valid alcoholic beverage license and make at least 25% of their annual gross income from “from the on-site sale of cigars, pipe tobacco, paraphernalia and accessories related to the consumption of cigars and pipe tobacco, and rental of humidors, or a combination thereof.” A previous version of the bill set that income level at 15%.
Health organizations say what they call a “loophole” for cigar bars would compromise public health and undermine local smoke-free ordinances that protect workers and the public. Breathing secondhand smoke can cause cancer, heart disease, stroke and other health problems.
Sponsor Rep. Chris Lewis, R-Louisville, said his bill “does not fully roll back any existing smoke-free laws in any local municipality in the commonwealth.”
“This is not about smoking cigars in a regular bar, your local bowling alley or restaurant or any other public place that doesn’t currently allow smoking,” he said. “If you don’t want to be exposed to cigar smoke in a public place where smoke-free laws currently exist, nothing in this bill changes your ability to maintain that separation.”
The bill would also require cigar bars to notify people that they will be exposed to smoke at the facility, which would be required to have a smoke-free space for deliveries and related business with non-employees. It would subject cigar bars to any local ordinances that are “not in conflict” with the bill, including local regulations on permits and inspections.
Lewis said on the House floor that his bill would not “prevent any municipality from creating a new smoke-free ordinance, but it would not allow them to ban a cigar bar.”
Doug Hogan, the government relations director in Kentucky for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, told the Lantern after the Tuesday vote that the proposal “creates a huge loophole in local smoke-free ordinances that currently require all bars to be smoke-free” and said the Senate should “reject” it.
The bill, Hogan said, “will expose more people to the toxic compounds and chemicals in secondhand smoke and tie the hands of our local elected leaders to protect the health and safety of residents in their local community.”
A letter sent to legislators when the bill was in committee said Kentucky has 44 “popular and effective smoke-free laws” at the local government level. Eleven organizations — including the Foundation For A Healthy Kentucky, Kentucky Medical Association, Kentucky Youth Advocates and more — asked lawmakers to reject the bill, saying it “preempts local authority” and “sends the wrong message to Kentucky’s youth.”
Rep. Al Gentry, D-Louisville, said his vote in favor of the bill was about personal choice.
“I’ll be the first one to say here that I don’t smoke,” he said. “I will probably never go into a cigar bar, but I voted yes because I am a proponent of … freedom and accountability.”
Rep. Anne Gay Donworth, D-Lexington, said that while this year’s version of the bill “is a much better version than what we passed last year” she voted against it because “my district has a very, very, very popular indoor smoking ban” that she didn’t want to jeopardize.
HB 194 can now go to the Senate for consideration.