If House Bill 211 becomes law, Kentucky communities would be unable to prohibit cigar bars. In order to be classified as a cigar bar under the bill, businesses would have to generate at least 15% of their annual gross income from the on-site sale of cigars and related accessories.
Rep. Chris Lewis, a Louisville Republican, maintained that the measure isn't meant to reverse anti-smoking ordinances.
"This bill will not roll back any municipality's local smoke free law. That's not the intention, and that's not what it does," he told colleagues Tuesday. "So this is not about having a cigar in a regular bar or a bowling alley or a restaurant. That that this will not allow that."
Yet the carve-out would chip away at ordinances such as Lexington's two-decade-old smoking ban, which prohibits indoor smoking in public places.
Rep. George Brown, a Democrat who was on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council when the historic smoke-free ordinance passed, said it's not something Lexington residents are clamoring for.
"I have not had a lot of comments from people in Fayette County except one, my former colleague on city council. And he said we don't need it in Fayette County," he said. "I think that this is overriding local control and local control in Fayette County says that we do not want smoking of any kind"
Still, the bill easily cleared a committee Tuesday and now moves to the full House for consideration.
