LEXINGTON, KY. ? Gone are the days of smoky bars and pool halls in Lexington, long known as the burley tobacco capital of the world.

On Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a 6-1 decision upholding a ban on smoking in virtually all buildings open to the public in Fayette County. The Urban County Council, the court said, had not only a right but a duty to protect the health of the public — even at the expense of the rights of property owners.

The ban is effective immediately, but the city Health Department said it would not begin enforcing it until midnight Monday. Even then, the enforcers — the same city workers who do restaurant inspections — won’t likely be on the prowl for violators. Enforcement will be carried out primarily in response to complaints.

“There’s not going to be a smoking Gestapo,” said Stephen Harris of the Health Department.

In the state Supreme Court’s 20-page majority opinion, Justice Donald Wintersheimer wrote that “among the police powers of the government, the power to promote and safeguard public health ranks at the top. If the right of an individual runs afoul of the exercise of this power, the right of an individual must yield.”

The decision — which makes Lexington the first city in Kentucky with a smoking ban, and one of 1,703 in the nation — was greeted gleefully by some and glumly by others.

News of the ruling quickly spread nationwide. It was hailed as a watershed by smoking-ban supporters from California to New York because it is a stringent ordinance in the heart of the No. 2 tobacco-growing state — a state that also leads the nation in smoking and lung cancer rates.

The local government passed the ordinance in July on the heels of a task force study of the health effects of secondhand smoke. The ordinance had been on hold while a group of bar and restaurant owners sued to block it.