A recent round of somewhat secretive air quality tests of Natchez restaurants and bars shows something very much unsurprising — smoking indoors lowers the air quality.

Certainly no revelation, the newly released stats do, however, bring a bit of local credibility to the longstanding debate over whether restaurants and bars should allow patrons to smoke.

The research conducted by the Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center showed establishments that allow smoking — either across the board or in so-called “smoking sections” — had degraded air quality for patrons as well as staff.

That’s not good news — or good business. Patrons and employees can be harmed by continually breathing in poor quality air.

The air quality results have prompted a grassroots organization to seek the City of Natchez to pass a smoking ban.

In principle, we support such a smoking ban, however, simply banning outright plays right into the critics who argue such bans are unfair to the businesses who potentially could be harmed by this.

Why not consider a citywide ban, with the option of a business being able to obtain a license to allow smoking if the business’ owner believed the ability to smoke was critical to the type of business in question? Such would allow any potential smoking-critical places — for example a cigar bar — to open and operate.

The license to smoke might also require the businesses to prominently declare on its front door that it allows smoking. That would give fair warning to any non-smokers to avoid fear of second-hand smoke exposure.

Such might resolve the issues on both sides of the cigarette debate.