John Aguilar reports on an emerging trend of smoking bans in downtowns around Colorado. The latest ban took effect on January 1 in Littleton, following earlier examples in Golden, Boulder, and Fort Collins.

Opposite those actions, according to Aguilar, "other Colorado cities and towns with similar compact, walkable downtown business zones that appear ripe for the imposition of smoking restrictions aren't even talking about it." Examples of the more permissive cities in the Denver metro area include Arvada, Louisville, and Castle Rock. Moreover, "[i]n Denver, with the most visited downtown in the entire state, talk about making the 16th Street Mall a no-smoking zone has been stuck in the early stages for at least a year."

The article provides a lot more on the larger political debate on either side of smoking bans, as well as specifics of the laws as enacted in some of these examples.