By Matt Leingang
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati may be getting closer to banning smoking in all workplaces, bars and restaurants.

Vice Mayor Alicia Reece this week said she's going to ask City Council, perhaps at an August session, to establish an advisory panel of residents and business owners.

Placing new restrictions on smoking in the workplace was a topic at last week's conference involving the mayors of Ohio's six largest cities, Reece said. It's an issue that many cities are wrestling with, and one that Cincinnati can't ignore, she said.

BY THE NUMBERS

• Kentucky (32.6 percent), Alaska (29.4 percent), West Virginia (28.4 percent), Tennessee (27.8 percent), and Indiana (27.7 percent) have the highest prevalence of adult smokers, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Ohio (26.6 percent) isn't far behind. • On average, 53,000 non-smoking Americans die every year from inhaling secondhand smoke, including 3,000 from lung cancer and 35,000 to 50,000 from coronary heart disease, according to the CDC. • On March 31, 2004, one year after New York City went smoke-free, the bar and restaurant industry is thriving, according to a report by the city's Department of Finance and the NYC Economic Development Corporation. Business tax receipts in restaurants and bars were up nearly 9 percent.

"We need to start the conversation," Reece said. "Many businesses are already going smoke-free, so let's see what direction the private sector is going and then assess if it is necessary to have a ban."

The issue is picking up steam in Cincinnati and in other parts of Ohio and Kentucky:

• The Cincinnati Clean Indoor Air Coalition, an advocacy group funded with money from the national tobacco settlement, commissioned a telephone survey in April of 500 registered Cincinnati voters. Sixty-four percent said they would support a law prohibiting smoking in the workplace, bars and restaurants.

• Advocates in Columbus are hosting a series of 10 community forums. By mid-June they hope to present a clean-indoor-air proposal to City Council and to legislators in surrounding suburbs, said Dr. Rob Crane, an assistant professor of family medicine at Ohio State University and co-chair of SmokeFree Columbus.

• Last week, a government advisory panel recommended that Cleveland City Council outlaw smoking in bars, restaurants, workplaces and most other indoor public areas.

• In June, the Tobacco Prevention Coalition of Northern Kentucky will commission a telephone poll to gauge support for restricting workplace smoking in Boone, Kenton, Campbell and Grant counties, said Matt Coleman, a senior health educator with the group.

• Lexington, in the heart of the tobacco belt, went smoke free in April. Toledo snuffed out smoking in the workplace last year.

Clean indoor air laws protect employees and customers from exposure to secondhand smoke, a carcinogen associated with increased risks for heart disease and lung cancer in adults and respiratory disease in children, especially asthma, advocates say.

They also play down predictions that smoking bans are bad for businesses.

"Show me the evidence. Every other place in the country with smoke-free legislation continues to have a thriving bar and restaurant industry," said Ahron Leichtman, executive director of Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society in Cincinnati.

Five states - New York, California, Delaware, Connecticut and Maine - and 72 cities had imposed indoor-smoking bans as of January, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But how far the issue goes in Cincinnati remains to be seen.

Health Commissioner Malcolm Adcock, the city's top public-health official, has stopped short of calling for a smoking ban. But, like Reece, he wants the community to start talking about it.

Other council members said it is simply not a priority. They also fear a perceived economic fallout from smokers abandoning city bars and restaurants for those in the suburbs or across the river in Newport and Covington.

"I don't think a smoking ban is high on anybody's list of things to tackle," said Councilman David Crowley, whose family owns Crowley's bar in Mount Adams.

"I certainly think smoking is a health problem - I used to smoke," Crowley said. "But at the same time, I think smokers need a place where they can go."

Jimmy Gherardi, owner of J's restaurant in Hyde Park, said he doesn't fear a smoking ban but doesn't think it's necessary.

"I think we've already achieved what we want to achieve - smoking sections that keep smoke away from non-smokers," Gherardi said.

E-mail leingang@enquirer.com