After a lull of many months, efforts to restrict smoking in public in Kentucky seem to again be picking up steam. Expect the trend to continue as fewer Kentuckians smoke and more non-smokers want to be free of second-hand smoke when they dine out and shop.
The central Kentucky city of Radcliff, which is located near Elizabethtown and the large Fort Knox Army base, became the latest Kentucky to restrict smoking in public when the city council voted just before Christmas to approve an ordinance to restrict smoking in much the same way as Ashland’s ordinance does. The ordinance — which was approved by a 4-2 vote — will not take effect until April 1.
Soon after Lexington became the first Kentucky city to restrict smoking in public, about 20 other cities and counties across the state — including Louisville and Ashland — soon followed suit. But then the trend slowed to a halt and only picked up steam in the last couple of months.
Meanwhile, the three northern Kentucky counties of Boone, Kenton and Campbell continue to make Covington, Newport, Florence and the numerous other smaller cities in the three counties across the Ohio River from Cincinnati the largest metropolitan area in Kentucky without a restriction on smoking in public. Calls by health care professionals and other anti-smoking advocates to get the fiscal courts in the three counties to enact identical ordinances to restrict public smoking have fallen on deaf ears.
The Kenton County Fiscal Court did recently agree to prohibit smoking in county-owned buildings, but banning smoking in the courthouse still is a long way from restricting smoking in most public places, including private businesses.
Meanwhile, the same organization that successfully convinced the Ashland Board of City Commissioners to restrict smoking in public has announced it hopes to expand the restriction to include all of Boyd County. We hope that effort is successful as we are convinced the advantages of the public smoking ban in Ashland far exceed any disadvantages. That being said, we seriously doubt that the current Boyd Fiscal Court will approve any restrictions on public smoking, particularly during an election year.
Nevertheless, we are convinced that the day will come when smoking is banned in most pubic buildings throughout Kentucky. After all, such bans already exist in many states, including neighboring Ohio. Even in a state where tobacco was once king and smoking was actively promoted by state leaders, it’s just a matter of time.
Editorials
Radcliff's turn — 01/02/10
Move to limit public smoking again is picking up steam
- Editorials
-
-
Anyone for golf?
Wurtland Elementary soon will be the only school in northeastern Kentucky with a miniature golf course. For that, the school can credit a $2,000 grant from Big Lots, a creative video produced by students and the support of numerous area residents who took the time to vote for the video in an Internet contest promoted by the chain of discount stores.
-
Not necessary
Bill Haycraft, president of the League of Kentucky Sportsmen, is leading an effort to place a “right-to-hunt” amendment to the Kentucky Constitution on the 2012 ballot, an effort that is supported by the politically powerful National Rifle Association. But from our vantage point, the amendment is unnecessary. There is no move afoot to ban hunting in this state, and it would take a 180-degree shift in the political winds for such a ban to be approved by the Kentucky General Assembly or by individual counties within the state
-
Labor Day
There are many things to bemoan on this Labor Day. While economists and politicians assure us that the recession has ended and the economy is in the midst of an admittedly slow recovery, it sure doesn’t feel that way to most of us. In fact, despite all the things President Obama and Congress have done in hopes of boosting the economy, we don’t seem much better off than we were on Labor Day of 2009.
-
More bickering
With the gubernatorial election still 15 months away, it is much too early to predict whether the Republican team of Senate President David Williams and Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer will nix Gov. Steve Beshear’s bid for re-election with Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson as his running mate, but we do know this: Williams’ early entry into the race for governor just about guarantees little will be accomplished during the 30-day 2011 General Assembly. If you think the constant partisan bickering in the General Assembly has thwarted progress in Kentucky — and it has — just wait until the man who has ruled the Republican-controlled Senate with an iron fist for more than a decade is challenging the governor’s bid for a second term.
-
Battling bedbugs
A resurgence of bedbugs across the U.S. has homeowners and apartment dwellers taking measures to eradicate the tenacious bloodsuckers that could pose a far greater risk to their health than the tiny insects.
-
A giant step
Quality health care in rural eastern Kentucky has taken a giant step forward with the opening of the Center for Health Education and Research in Morehead.
-
All but over
The Obama administration has all but declared America’s combat role in the war in Iraq over.
Seven years after President George W. Bush stood on an aircraft carrier beneath a large banner boldly proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” and boasted that the major combat operations in Iraq had ended, President Barack Obama sat quietly in the Oval Office Tuesday night to announce the formal end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq. -
Quiet leader
Kentucky has lost one of its most effective advocates for quality education with the death of Robert F. Sexton, the executive director of the privately funded Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence since 1983. Sexton, 68, died Thursday following a long battle with cancer.
-
Underfunded
Another independent report shows the Kentucky Employees Retirement System that guarantees benefits to some 84,000 current and retired state employees is on shaky financial ground but still able to meet its financial obligations. The report by the Washington-based Center for State and Local Government Excellence gives yet another reason for legislators to take a closer look at shoring up the retirement fund, including making more changes in the retirement benefits offered future state workers, while still keeping the promises made to current state workers and retiree.
-
Shirking duty
At about the same time legislators in Frankfort were meeting in special session to enact a two-year budget that should have been approved six weeks earlier, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were adding a new kink in the already broken budget process in Washington, D.C.
- More Editorials Headlines
-
Anyone for golf?
