04/09/2008 - Lynn Horsley - The Kansas City Star

Kansas City’s bars and restaurants must go smoke-free within two months after voters on Tuesday approved a comprehensive workplace smoking ban.

The ban won by a 52 to 48 percent margin in unofficial final returns.

Cathy Jolly, a Kansas City councilwoman and cancer survivor, praised the grassroots petition effort to put the measure on the ballot.

“This was citizen-led,” she said. “This wasn’t government-sponsored.”

Tuesday’s decision, Jolly said, will make the city “a healthier place to work, to eat, to be out and about.”

Kansas City joins nearly a dozen metro area communities in deciding, through elections or council votes, to prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants. The measure also calls for Kansas City’s casino gaming floors to go smoke-free when casinos in neighboring cities approve similar bans.

Supporters hope Tuesday’s vote is a tipping point for other area cities to join the smoke-free trend. Unified Government Mayor Joe Reardon plans to introduce an ordinance soon that would ban smoking in Wyandotte County public places, including bars and restaurants, according to spokesman Mike Taylor.

The election capped a passionate debate in which owners of Kansas City neighborhood bars and restaurants argued that a ban was unfair and would devastate their businesses. They said the ban puts them at a competitive disadvantage to the casino gaming floors as well as to entertainment venues in nearby cities that still allow smoking.

Gretchen Wilhelm, a cook at The Peanut bar and grill on Main Street, said business is already off since some smoking restrictions recently took effect, and she feared job losses. She worried the ban will hurt locally owned food establishments that give Kansas City its special flavor.

“I really think it should be up to the business owners’ discretion,” she said. “As an adult, I resent not being allowed to make my own choices concerning my health.”

Health-care advocates and civic leaders countered that business rights stop when they infringe on nonsmokers’ rights to breathe clean air. They were especially concerned about mounting health-care costs and the risks to bar and restaurant employees from prolonged exposure to secondhand smoke.

The new law takes effect in 60 days and supersedes a rival City Council measure that took effect March 24. That measure allowed smoking in bars at all hours and in restaurants with liquor licenses after 9 p.m.

The council measure also banned smoking throughout the Truman Sports Complex. The new law does not address smoking in open-air parts of the stadiums, but the Royals have decided on their own to allow smoking only in certain areas near the turnstiles.

The campaign leading up to Tuesday’s election was waged with money from Big Tobacco on one side and major health-care contributors on the other.

Tobacco giant Reynolds American Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., contributed more than $220,000 to the group opposing the ban. Proponents of the ban received more than $240,000 in contributions, primarily from the American Cancer Society, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and St. Luke’s Health System.

The new law will be enforced by the Kansas City Health Department. Health inspectors expect most smokers to obey the law, based on their experience since some workplace smoking restrictions took effect in mid-2005. The department has received about 200 complaints since then, but most are resolved quickly.