State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System

Effective July 1, 2022, Tennessee will now allow cities and counties to regulate smoking and the use of vapor products in most age-restricted venues, such as bars.

Although Tennessee passed the Non-Smoker Protection Act in 2007 prohibiting smoking in indoor areas of public places, such as private sector workplaces and restaurants, the state law did not prohibit smoking in bars and other age-restricted venues. Since Tennessee law prevented local governments from passing smoke-free laws that differed from state law, cities and counties were preempted from prohibiting smoking in bars and other age-restricted venues.

The 2022 law now gives local governments the authority to enact smoke-free laws in bars and other age-restricted venues. The law defines an “age-restricted venue” as an establishment that affirmatively restricts access to its buildings or facilities at all times to persons who are twenty-one (21) years of age or older. However, the new law does not allow local governments to regulate smoking or the use of vapor products in retail tobacco stores, retail vapor product stores, or cigar bars.

Leave the STATE System and use the Tobacco Use Data Portal to access expanded datasets. Datasets include summary exports related to state legislation on smokefree indoor air that apply to smoking and the use of e-cigarettes in private worksites, restaurants and bars.

Additional features include; view maps, filters and graphs in the portal and export, link and embed data.