LAFAYETTE, LA. (KLFY) – Members of the Lafayette City-Parish Council and Tobacco Free Living gathered in the atrium of city hall as the No Smoking Ordinance got its final stamp of approval.

For years it was simply an idea in the city of Lafayette, but with the stroke of about 15 pens, Mayor-President Joel Robideaux gave his approval to the No Smoking Ordinance.

For souvenir purposes, the mayor-president signed the ordinance with multiple pens. No matter how many writing utensils were used, Region-four manager of Tobacco Free Living Rene Stansbury sees the signing as a huge win for public health.

“The signing of this ordinance means that all workers are now going to be protected in Lafayette. We’re going to join the other cities throughout our state who have also adopted a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance” said Stansbury.

For bar owners who are still apprehensive about sending smokers outdoors, Stansbury says the ordinance doesn’t affect your income, it’s revenue neutral.

“If anything, we see an increase. The same fears that restaurants had ten years ago whenever they went smoke-free, you can see from our great restaurants we have around town that it’s definitely thriving.”

At last week’s council meeting, members voted 7-2 in favor of the ordinance. Mayor-President Joel Robideaux says it’s been a long time coming. 

“Everybody deserves to be able to breathe clean air and the council worked on this for a long time and they finally got the votes to get it passed last week and moving forward, it puts Lafayette in a little bit of a different position than a lot of other communities” Robideaux said.

The no smoking ordinance will officially go into affect on August 1, 2017.