By Murray Evans
The Associated Press

LEXINGTON - Many University of Kentucky students can remember the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in the air at Tolly-Ho, a popular hangout across the street from the campus.

The haze is gone since Tolly-Ho implemented a smoke-free policy Jan. 1, and it hasn't hurt business, said Sandra Milling, one of the restaurant's owners.

Milling said Friday that fellow restaurant owners need not fear the city's indoor smoking ban, which will be enforced starting Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.

"We had some customers, the real heavy smokers, go somewhere else," Milling said. "But they seem to be replaced by people who don't smoke or don't smoke as much, and the ones who smoke just go outside."

The Lexington council approved the ban in July, but opponents quickly went to court, seeking to overturn the ban, the first of its kind in Kentucky. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the ban, ruling 6-1 Thursday that Lexington's government was exercising its legitimate authority to protect public health.

A third of adults in Kentucky are smokers, the highest rate in the nation, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The ban prohibits smoking in most public buildings in a city in the heart of the burley tobacco belt. The ban does not apply to private dwellings, rooms or halls used for private social functions, retail tobacco stores and tobacco warehouses, indoor smoking areas in government buildings and facilities operated by private organizations.

Tolly-Ho joined other popular Lexington restaurants, such as Joe Bologna's and Ramsey's, that voluntarily went smoke free.