County Bucks Trend, Repeals Smoking Ban

They don't call it tobacco country for nothing: A Kentucky County has bucked a national trend and repealed a smoking ban for bars and restaurants. Campbell County officials voted 3-1 to kill the measure, which had been adopted in December and was supposed to go into effect in April. Opponents packed the public hearing, with one of the loudest bursts of applause coming from a man who likened the ban to, wait for it, the policies of Hitler, notes the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Proponents had their say, too, including one woman who asked commissioners: “At least 88 people … could die, or will die, in 2011. How does that make you feel?” A doctor said repeal would make the county seem "backward-looking." But another doctor—not a medical one, mind you, but a self-described "doctor of liberty"—said he had taken the county's "pulse of liberty" and found it to be "very, very strong." (More smoking ban stories.)