The Associated Press

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council will hear next week from a task force that studied the impact of a smoking ban in the city's restaurants, bars and taverns.

The city-appointed task force will not make any recommendations, but its final report was tilted in support of such a ban by indicating the side effects of secondhand smoke and the sizable public support of smoke-free gathering places.

A minority on the task force, members of the Fayette County Farm Bureau, provided a dissenting view.

Hundreds of municipalities and a handful of states have imposed indoor smoking bans. New York City, Boston and Chicago are among cities considering them.

But Lexington's situation is unusual because of its proximity to the tobacco industry.

Burley farmers' resistance to the ban has been joined by local bar and restaurant owners who fear a dip in business. Both groups argue against the infringement on personal freedoms - the right to smoke and the right of restaurants to decide.

Task force chairman Dr. David Stevens has challenged that notion.

"The protection of the public and of the workers are more important than that right," he said.

Mr. Stevens, an at-large councilman, said the council could decide as early as Tuesday whether to start preparing an ordinance establishing the ban.

An alternative to council action is a public referendum. Mayor-elect Teresa Isaac and vice mayor-elect and restaurant businessman Mike Scanlon, who sat on the task force, support a referendum.

A phone survey commissioned last month by Scanlon's Thomas & King, which owns Lexington's Applebee's franchises, shows a public evenly divided. Out of 300 residents surveyed, 45.5 percent favor the ban, while 45.2 percent oppose it. About 9.3 percent said they didn't know where they stood.

Frank Penn, a tobacco farmer who sat on the task force, said farmers would not suffer any blow to the consumption of tobacco if Lexington clamped down on restaurant smoking.

"But it is symbolic," he said.

No other Kentucky city has imposed such a ban.

"The Fayette County Farm Bureau will never tell you smoking is good for you; it is not," Mr. Penn said. "But tobacco is a legal product, and it's been an integral part of our livelihood for 60 years or more."

Task force member Bob Megazzini, president of the Bluegrass chapter of the Kentucky Restaurant Association, cited national studies that suggest smoking bans have not caused the restaurant industry to suffer as a whole. But some places, especially nightclubs and bars, would probably experience a drop in sales if smokers are forced to puff outside, he predicted.

Mr. Megazzini said he'd prefer giving a choice to restaurateurs. A growing niche of non-smoking clientele was driving a trend in smoke-free restaurants, he said.

The task force also included officials in the health, business and legal community. The report argued that the city had the legal right to enact the ordinance.