Good for the Royale!
Do they serve lunch? It is close to my work and might make a nice smoke-free alternative.

The Royale is just proving that the free market work in St. Louis is working and St. Louis does not need a smoking ban. Air filtration machines are another option venues like the Royale can try. These machines achieve results pretty close to being smoke-free while at the same time taking all sorts of other pathogens and carcinogens such as avian flu and radon from bar air.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/tobacco.php

But gosh Jake! Grassroots movement! You hand out that honorific designation pretty freely this time. Really Smoke Free St. Louis City amounts to the American Cancer Society hiring an organizer to create “a grassroots movement”. Do you really thing local people worried and bothered by bar smoke took up a collection to pay the Smoke-Free St. Louis Director’s salary and benefits. I don’t think so.

Keep St. Louis Free!, on the other hand, is a real unpaid grassroots movement in which people Darla Maloney, Debbie Hopper and David Kuneman have spent their own time and money to fight for local property rights and freedom. Ask the Missouri Restaurant Association about us. We had a big part in shooting down Kurt Odenwald’s smoking ban twice and all by ourselves took on Odenwald’s attempt at an airport smoking ban. We successfully organized a conservative coalition against the Missouri Tobacco Tax, not primarily because we want our tobacco cheap, but because such tax money later funds groups like Smoke-Free St. Louis City bent on taking away our St. Louis freedom. We trudged thru the streets of Ballwin doing “lit. drops” and “doorbelling” in order to help boot Ballwin smoking ban author Charlie Gatton out office. I am sure our work provided at least the 50 or so votes Ray Kerlagon needed to beat Gatton. But we haven’t gotten mentioned in any Post articles by Clay Barbour or Phil Sutin over the past three years. I suppose because such real grass roots opposition to tobacco restrictions is just not supposed to exist. We don’t fit the template, no matter how hard we work.

Good for the Royale - it’s the owners right to determine what type of food they serve, type of beer they sell and if they allow smoking. That is something that the ACS “grassroots” movement won’t allow. They want to take the choice away from the owners.
Besides - what the ACS and St Louis Smokefree movement don’t want people to know is how they are funded. They are funded by Johnson & Johnson who push bans on communities. It seems that when bans go into communities, nicorette and the patch sales go through the roof. I would hardly call a Big Pharma backed organization “grassroots”.

Another smoke free establishment is further proof that smoking ban is not needed in St Louis or Missouri.

They are now 100% more likely to get my business. I was on the patio once for a fundraiser. Looking forward to coming down soon.

I’m so glad the Royale is going 100% smokefree! Hopefully the rest of our city will catch on. IL and NE are smoke-free now, I don’t want us to be last…

Didn’t Odenwald get voted out of office for trying to force a ban on St Louis County?

I haven’t been to the Royale in a long time but now I will definitely make the effort to support them.

As a former smoker I appreciate going to a bar and not needing a shower when I get home.

The Chicago aldermen vote 46- 1 for a smoking ban only because the ban had an air filtration exemption. Once Chicago went it was hard to stop a statewide ban. But the ACS pulled that exemption in the statewide ban. What a mean trick!
http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webportal/COCWebPortal/COC_ATTACH/MunicipalCode7-32_1.html#7_32_080

The ACS pushed the Illinois ban with its infamous 16 Cigarette Claim that even the Post-Dispatch dutifully printed. But now even Missouri GASP leader Martin Pion admits that he knew all along that the 16 Cigarette Claim was junk. St. Louis leaders are too smart to fall for such tricks at this point.

Tony, Odenwald and Gatton are both gone.

http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2008/01/martin-pion-rejects-american-cancer.html

I used to go to the Royal when it was all smoking and the place was always packed. We had to wait for a table many times. Then it went partially smoke free and the crowds diminished. We could always get a table without waiting. Now, I suspect the owner will be in for a very unpleasant suprise.