Kentucky seeks smoking changes

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's major cities want state legislators to repeal a law that required indoor smoking areas in public buildings.

"It's an unfunded mandate a lot of cities didn't know they had," Sylvia Lovely, executive director of the Kentucky League of Cities, said Wednesday. The league includes 350 municipalities.

The General Assembly in 1994 pre-empted local governments on public smoking. A law enacted that year had the effect of precluding bans on smoking in public buildings. Smoking could be restricted, but a ventilated space had to be created for smokers.