Kansas smoking ban hasn't choked off bars, restaurants, study finds

Publication Date: 2013-01-26

• Author:Brianne Pfannenstiel
• Publication:Kansas City (MO) Business Journal

The Kansas Health Institute has released an analysis saying the statewide smoking ban has not had an overall negative effect on the restaurant and bar industry, as some initially feared.

The ban, implemented in July 2010 as a public health initiative, was intended to reduce the public’s exposure to secondhand smoke.

KHI has compared sales and liquor license data for the eight years before the ban’s implementation as well as for the two years following.

The analysis does note that individual businesses may have been positively or negatively affected by the ban, but that the industry as a whole did not suffer any negative consequences. Sales increased each year except for a slight drop in 2010 before the ban was implemented, and then they increased each year after the ban took effect.