State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System

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 was not comprehensive. It did not prohibit smoking in bars and other age-restricted venues. Since Tennessee law prevented local governments from passing smokefree laws that differed from state law, cities and counties were preempted from prohibiting smoking in bars and other age-restricted venues.

Following passage of a state law in 2022, local governments in Tennessee now have 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.

Several municipalities in Tennessee have since taken action to pass local smokefree ordinances. Nashville’s mayor signed law BL2022-1383 eliminating smoking from most 21-and-over establishments in Davidson County effective March 2023. Hendersonville passed Ordinance 2023-14 in July 2023 banning smoking and vaping within age-restricted establishments.

For more information on the status of Tennessee and other states’ laws regarding preemption of smokefree indoor air laws, please see CDC STATE System’s Preemption Factsheet.

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.