TOPEKA -- Hard-line local anti-smoking ordinances trump state mandates on workplace smoking, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled late last week.

And Kansas anti-smoking activists now predict that more municipalities will enact total indoor smoking bans, which hit urban-based businesses like restaurants, bars and nightclubs especially hard.

In Dennis Steffes v. City of Lawrence (docket# 96,8383), Lawrence bar-owner Steffes challenged a local workplace-smoking ban as unconstitutionally vague. Steffes argued that the Lawrence ordinance conflicted with a Kansas state law allowing workplaces more freedom.

But the Supreme Court upheld a ruling by Judge Jack A. Murphy of the Douglas district court that the Lawrence anti-smoking laws, while "more stringent than state regulations ... do not conflict with state law."

The Court also rejected the vagueness argument. "The City's ordinance conveys sufficient definite warning and fair notice as to the prohibited conduct in light of common understanding: allowing smoking in prohibited places by knowledge that it is occurring," wrote Justice Lawton R. Nuss.

Steffes' attorneys had argued that for downtown bars like those owned by Steffes, the restrictions amounted to a total ban because they do not have outdooor areas like patios and decks where smoking would be permitted, LegalNewsLine reported in April.

The ruling should now "open the door for [stricter anti-smoking] ordinances across the state," a spokewoman for anti-smoking activist group Clean Air Kansas City told local media.

Lawrence's strict anti-smoking ordinance passed in 2004. Since then the cities of Olathe and Overland Park, near Kansas City, have enacted similar anti-smoking bills.