The New Orleans City Council Thursday night adopted — unanimously — a comprehensive smoking ban in the city. This is the first time I’ve written a post about the passage of a smoking ban in a long time. Pretty much everywhere that was going to pass a ban has already done it.

Louisiana already had a ban on smoking in restaurants, but the New Orleans council went one step further and banned smoking in all nightclubs and bars. New Orleans was one of the largest cities in the country without a comprehensive smoking ban. (I think San Antonio is the biggest city without a comprehensive ban … the city has a ban, but it’s full of a loopholes, so it doesn’t count in my book.).

There were some concerns during the council hearing that the new law could financially hurt city businesses. I would respond that the No. 1 industry in New Orleans is tourism obviously and most tourists are coming from areas of the country that already have smoking bans, so they are used to it. No one is going to stop coming to New Orleans because of a smoking ban.

Here is an editorial from the New Orleans Times-Picayune hailing the vote.