Nearly 12 months ago the city stamped out smoking in bars and restaurants and this December, smokers are out in the cold.

The council hasn't budged, adamant you'll thank them later. As a new year sets in, owners come to pass on the controversial ban that left non-smokers breathing freely and smokers fuming.

"After a while you got to decide when it's time to fold the cards and move onto something else," said Joel Thiel, the owner of Otto's Corner Bar and Grill.

Otto's Bar and Grill opened six years ago, but the owner has battled all year to stop his business from bleeding out.

"Through the year I've lost my health insurance cause I couldn't afford it anymore," said Thiel. "We're all about to come out of a job, so no income coming in you know, I've lost my house. The ripple effect here is not just me and my employees, how about all the other companies I did business with?"

Thiel says he's not alone, he believes his business is number 16 on the list of fatalities from the ban.

Mayor Darwin Hindman thinks differently.

"I'm frankly skeptical that this is the case," Hindman said. "That I think is a wide variety of things that affect a business of a restaurant, it's a very risky business."

Looking back on the decision the mayor has no regrets.

"There is no safe condition which you can be subjected to secondhand smoke, that's unacceptable to me," he said.

Many bars around Columbia have compromised to follow the councils direction, and say their patrons are adapting.

Still Thiel says he didn't have an option and it showed with his profits sucked down 30 percent.

"In this kind of business you can't take that kind of a hit and expect to meet payroll, and your lease and all the other expenses," he said.

Now that the flame is almost out, Thiel must adapt just like his smoking regulars, and Hindman will take the heat convinced his city will thank him in the long run.

Hindman says the ban is balancing out the economy. Take for example Shiloh's Bar and Grill which is closing Saturday night, ready to move into Colosseum Bistro's former home on Fourth and Broadway.

While Billiards on Broadway has bought up pool tables from Columbia Billiards, reinventing themselves as a family friendly pool hall.