Tagged: smoking

Officials in a southern Kentucky city have decided to ban smoking.

The Times-Tribune reports Williamsburg City Council gave final approval on Monday to an ordinance that bans smoking in most public places, including restaurants, bars, pool halls and public areas of hotels and apartment buildings.

Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison said he is a former smoker, but the duty of officials is to "protect everybody."

The ordinance gives employers 30 days to inform workers about the smoking ban.

Brad Rodu says it's time for the public health community to re-think how it looks at the smoking debate in this country.  Rodu is head of the Tobacco Harm Reduction effort at the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center. He says for too long the smoking issue has come down to an all-or-nothing wager: smokers are told they either have to give up cigarettes, or keep smoking and die.