The Economic Impact of the 2008 Kansas City, Missouri Smoke-Free Air Ordinance

On Thursday April 8th, Kansas City Missouri voters approved Question 3, a ballot initiative requiring private workplaces, restaurants, and bars to be smoke-free. The Kansas City, Missouri smoking ordinance took full effect on June 21, 2008.

To the best of our knowledge, no peer reviewed studies have examined the economic impact of the Kansas City Missouri smoke-free policy on eating and drinking establishments. This project addresses this by assessing the impact of the smoke-free policy on taxable sales in restaurants and bars. The results from this study are consistent with previous peer reviewed studies for other jurisdictions and suggest that after controlling for confounding factors, the Kansas City smoke-free policy had no negative impact on overall sales in eating and drinking establishments in Kansas City. Moreover, this study finds that smoke-free policies have had no negative impacts on eating and drinking establishment sales in Missouri and Kansas.