The smoking ban is working fine in Columbia if you don’t count the several local restaurants and bars that shut down after the ban. Supporters of the ban like to say they were poorly run businesses on the fringe of survival, but they were getting by just fine before the ban was passed by the city council.

I do not smoke and I do not like the odor of cigarettes, however the stench that comes from politicians who want to be our nanny and micromanage our lives is more than my stomach can take.

Don’t you have anything better to do…you Creve Coeur pile of pomposity?

I am proud to be a card-carrying Libertarian, and our goal is to make government get the hell out of our lives, and follow the U.S. Constitutioon to the letter.

I made Keep St. Louis Free’s case against a St. Louis smoking ban in a five minute interview on KMOX this morning. We touched on some of the issues posted here so far. I managed to get an mp3 file of the interview posted on
on the Keep St. Louis Free blog:

http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2008/11/kmox-interview_26.html

I would consider accepting Hannegan’s viewpoint on this at face value and buying his argument against dumb government intervention in the form of smoking bans if it all wasn’t profoundly hypocritical in light of his extreme anti-choice views expressed ad nauseum on this blog on a regular basis. I’m sure that smoking is responsible for more deaths of more people than the safe, medically supervised last resort of early term abortion. If you were truly the libertarian you fancy yourself to be, Bill, you would be content to leave each woman’s moral, medical and parental/familial decision-making exclusively up to her. Paging Dr. Freud!

Penelope, abortion kills twice as many Americans each year than active smoking reputedly kills.

I believe government should allow adults to freely take on life risk in exchange for fun or money. Let adults ride motorcycles without helmets, box professionally, climb mountains, surf 40 ft. waves, drive without seatbelts, smoke or tend bar in venues that allow smoking. It really should be up to them! Hey, they are adults and it’s their own lives they are risking. But kids who have no choice are a different matter.

The smoking ban compromise I proposed last year for St. Louis reflects this philosophy.

http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-louis-public-smoking-compromise.html

How about some big picture thinking by our politicians? Let’s impose a ban on all individual life choices that are found to be offensive by anyone. For starters, I propose prohibiting anyone with a Body Mass Index in excess of 25 from running for public office. Beyond that, such people should be refused service in any dining facilities that are open to the general public. I’m very offended by having to pay outrageous health care costs to subsidize those who do not have the self-discipline to eat and exercise responsibly. Others should feel free to add their own pet peeves to this list with the objective of coming up with “Omnibus Offensive Behavior Prohibition” legislation. Following enactment only one thing would remain – we would just need to be certain that the last person to leave the state remembers to turn out the lights.

Penelope (queen of obfuscation),

What does one have to do with the other?

I don’t like the smell of curry; so I stay out of Indian restaurants.

If the Indian restaurant had a great bar, but I didn’t like coming home with the smell of curry on my clothing, should I push to ban curry from restaurants?

What if I worked hard for many years so that I could open a cigar bar? Do you think my “private bar” should be considred a public venue, because I’m willing to let you in?

I have no problem with prohibiting smoking inside public venues. However, I do have a problem with the state/city making something, that is legal on the street, illegal in MY bar.

I have the right to refuse service to anyone who doesn’t like the smell of smoke, or is worried about the implications of tobacco smoke on their health. TO ALL OF YOU >>> STAY OUT.

If you want a restaurant or bar that operates the way YOU want it to operate; open your own restaurant or bar. You’re welcome to open a “smoke free” operation. I promise not to push for an ordinance that would permit me to smoke in YOUR bar.

Any smoking ban in Missouri would have to be statewide. Currently, although 9 small Missouri cities and Kansas City MO have smoking bans, these will be overturned shortly by the courts (numerous challenges are underway in KC). KCMO even stopped enforcing their smoking ban, and numerous KCMO bars and restaurants allow smoking despite the ban. This is because MO state law (191.769 RSMO) permits a whole bunch of types of places, including bars and restaurants seating less than 50 people, bowling alleys, billiard parlors, and tobacco shops, to allow as much smoking as they see fit. MO state law doesn’t allow cities to prohibit what state law permits, and so true comprehensive smoking bans cannot be passed by cities in MO. This is also how it is in Michigan, and how it was in NJ, WA, and NH before those states’ statewide smoking bans.

For now, though, tough luck nanny state folks… municipal smoking bans are illegal in MO.