Given that healt care is the major issue this summer one would think the City of St. Louis would be more inclined to nip problems in the bud. The fact that the city attempts to make revenue with alcohol and tobacco speaks poorly of the democratic party as a whole. They cry for more owner occupied houses but a major portion of the city is for rent. They scream for health care yet deal alcohol and tobacco. It seems the city wishes to speak out of both sides of its mouth.

How long before Bill Hannigan posts on here trying to continue the oppression of non-smokers in public places? We don’t care what you do to yourselves, smokers, just stop trying to do it to us inside public places. Rights for all.

Hannegen will continue with his crusade until he comes down with one of the myriad diseases that smokers love to inflict upon themselves. What a cause huh?

I don’t think it’s a question of “if” St. Louis goes smoke-free, more like “when”. It’s an evolution of society. Cigarette smoke sux, and I hate how I reek of smoke after a night out. I hope this passes…and I hope Mayor Slay, and other influential local figures, keeps pushing for it to pass.

Good news opponents of the bill, it will never go into effect even if it is passed! This bill is a joke. When in the history of society has a goverment relied on another goverment’s passage of a law to invoke their own. This is the equivalent of the US lowering taxes if Canada does. Absolutely ridiculous. Lydia Krewson took the cowards way out in drafting this bill; instead of taking a stand she gave the perception of taking a side, but inserted a caviat that will likely never get passed until a state wide ban passes. The citizens of St. Louis City should be offended by the lack of work and effort proposed by this alderman. We should demand our politicians make real use of their time in office other than arguing this bill for 3 days.

According to the Committee website, the hearing will be at 1pm on July 9. http://stlcin.missouri.org/alderman/committeeCalendar.cfm?thisday=07/09/2009&SiteId=31&ComId=4

Lyda Krewson should be working on issues to help the city and the residents of her ward. As a city resident I find her campaign to create and inter-counties smoking ban to be personally ambitious and an easy way to grab headlines with a hot button issue.

As as a city resident we need our Aldermen and Mayor Slay to do things to help struggling businesses like bars and restaraunts which are being hit hard in the economy, and create more jobs and opportunities, versus meddling with the businesses trying to stay afloat in our very challeneged city.

Perhaps Lyda Krewson should work with Mayor Slay to get Ballpark Village kick-started, create and maintain public transportation alliances and clean up depressed areas and burned out neighborhoods rather than a punitive publicity stunt such as this one. Also, why is this proposal then going to allow smoking on casino floors?

Our schools are in shambles, infrastructure is shot, the riverfront is a disaster and downtown is a ghost town. Their priority and solution is a ban on smoking in bars. Are they out of ideas?

Ahhh, once again everyone commenting on how their views and preferences should be forced upon business owners. Businesses are not public, they are not owned by the government, you have the choice to not walk into that building. Currently there is no smoking ban, so should bars/restaurants that choose to be smoke free be forced to allow it? I doubt most would agree with the previous statement, yet people think that the reverse should be true.

The general public has as much a right to tell a business owner whether or not they should allow smoking at their establishment just as much as they have the right to tell them what to serve on their menu… which they don’t.

Instead of the smoking opposition taking the bull by the horns and opening non smoking establishments to cater to the market, they would rather have someone place blanket legislation banning it everywhere… ensuring everyone conforms to their beliefs.

For those proposing the health argument: obesity causes more health problems than smoking or alcohol. Should we ban ‘unhealthy’ foods and mandate exercise? Here comes the next argument: Fat people don’t make me fat, they don’t have an effect on me. This actually increases the cost of healthcare for everyone, so if we want to start making health decisions for people, let’s start with the biggest problem of them all.

You tell em Mort! Let’s ignore the health and well being and the right of everyone to enter a public business without carcinogen-laden smoke. Let’s not make those City businesses more attractive to the 75% of this population that doesn’t smoke. Let’s ignore the rights for all by putting up smokescreens (pun intended smart guy) about other problems the City has…

Here is an idea,you self-anointed folks who only care about “The People”.Instead of ramming through a Bill to ban the use of a LEGAL substance(if politicians REALLY cared about the people instead of saying lots of words to make people think they DO care) Tobacco use should be BANNED.It should be completely banned. How about standing up for a Law that says ANY Politician convicted of corruption gets an automatic 25 year prison sentence? ahhh,but wont happen,because ALL of them are corrupt

Obesity is a health problem. Let’s ban fried foods!

Maybe the Alderman should be concerned with that polluted River Des Peres before they waste time and 3 hearings on a smoking ban that’s not really a ban anyway.

I mean, that thang just Stanks!!!

Mrworkout, go ahead and tell us how my eating makes YOU fatter. Go ahead and tell us how my drinking does damage to YOUR liver. That is an illogical and useless argument. But YOUR smoking damages my heart, lungs, eyes, nose, etc. Your bad habit directly affects my health every time you do it. Good luck finding that connection with eating, drinking, rock climbing, pole vaulting, or watching a Cards game on TV.

As for the health argument, I actually agree with you. I could care less what a smoker does to themselves. A ban on indoor smoking should not be a way to make others healthy. That is no one’s business. I don’t want smoking eliminated. I just want it eliminated in indoor places where even the best designed ventilation systems cannot remove the carcinogen-laden crap from the air before I inhale it (and, yes, I know something about ventilation systems). I have the right to bowl too, or to play slots, and to do it with heathy air.

“When in the history of society has a goverment relied on another goverment’s passage of a law to invoke their own.”

(1) Kansas City, which now enforces a smoke-free ban similar to the one being discussed in St. Louis, made it conditional on 85 percent of its metro area doing the same thing.

(2) The Treaty of Ghent

How is the general air quality in St. Louis??? What is being done about it?
Do you really think this will cure the problem ?
Kind of like the hot dog story…Lets ban hot dogs while commercial property owners continue to dump into the Mississippi…….
Keep it up St. Louis your vision on how to promote the city continues to get more ludircrous daily.

You can argue it all you want, BUT, it’s eventually going to happen. Missouri will probably be last to pass the ban…but it will happen. Like it, or not, it’s where the country is headed. I will be a happy mofo when it passes.

I’m in total agreement with Dustin. Yes the smoking ban WILL HAPPEN some day, maybe not this month or this year, but it will. Remember in the not so distant past when you had to walk through the smoking section in the back of an airplane to get to the restroom? Remember attending office meetings and sitting captive until the meeting ended while someone smoked up the entire room? Remember when smoking was allowed in hospitals? All business establishments that now don’t allow smoking, Mr Workout. Why can’t the smokers just accept the facts and resign themselves to keeping their smoke outside or in their own homes? If they can refrain from smoking while they fly, go to school, work, or worship, why can’t they refrain while they are eating out?

Last time I checked I thought we lived in a country that promoted freedom. Everyday our freedoms are taken away. Now I have to wear a seat belt or I can get a ticket. What happened to choice. You all have the choice of which establishment you go into whether it be smoker friendly or smokeless. If your going to ban smoking they should go to Marlboro, Philip Morris, and Benson & Hedges and tell them they can no longer make the product.

Non-smoking zealots and martyrs need a hobby. There are greater causes of death than smoking that these bored housewives can champion. They just are locked into their holier than thou attitude and are blind to reason.

That being said, I am growing weary of their motto:
At first you do not succeed, try, try, again (by any means necessary, even if they are illegal, unethical, and/or immoral).

Seriously non-smoking fanatics. There are more than 200 restaurants and bars in the area that are non-smoking. Go to them. Lack of business will case more bars to go non-smoking.

Another thought for you. If it is so bad for you, outlaw or regulate it. Seriously treat it like alcohol, have smoking bars and allow businesses to get smoking licenses.

Frankly, I would like to smack some sibilance of intelligence into these smug, I will save you from yourself whack jobs. They should go home and sleep with their wives/husbands and take care of their own issues.

jim63129 wrote, Obesity is a health problem. Let’s ban fried foods!

Agreed, stupidity is a problem here as well. We should also ban stupid people or at minimum, ban them from public office.

Smoker, it’s not about freedom, it’s about rules. There has to be rules because if everyone was allowed to run around doing anything they pleased, there would be total chaos! When you were in school didn’t your teacher force you to sit down and pay attention in class when maybe you would have preferred the freedom of going out to play? One’s public behavior should not be offensive to others. As far as choices are concerned, I have a choice to fly American Airlines or Delta, but last time I checked, they are both non-smoking. As it should be with restaurants, I should be able to choose any place to dine and not be offended by smoke.

I guess it won’t be enough until we ban everything we have. think about right now it’s smoking what will we want to stop next. I do not smoke and rarely drink, but I feel I have bigger issues to worry about.

Maggie,

Shouldn’t I be able to own a bar/restaurants and deny non-smokers entry?

jim63129 wrote: “Obesity is a health problem. Let’s ban fried foods!”

This is a red herring and has nothing to do with secondhand smoke. However, to digress for a moment: Obesity and lack of exercise has now been identified as a major health problem in the U.S. and is of concern. Among suggested responses is providing healthier school lunches and removing soda machines from schools, both reasonable. My own solution is to promote safe on-road bicycling for transportation, and I offer courses as a League of American Bicyclists Cycling Instructor in Ferguson where I live.

Returning to the issue: It’s perfectly reasonable to require the private workplace and places open to the public, both of which government already regulates to ensure safety, to be smoke-free. Apart from being a major health threat secondhand smoke (SHS) is also a major public nuisance. There is no reason to exempt SHS from regulation. The only reason it’s proving to be such a fight is the enduring power and influence of the tobacco industry and its supporters, many of whom - to their own detriment - are addicted smokers.

The industry used to claim that SHS hadn’t been proven harmful to nonsmokers but that argument was rebutted when the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, issued his first report on SHS in 1986 concluding that SHS caused lung cancer in exposed healthy nonsmokers.

Those who argue that smoking is a right superseding smoke-free laws because it’s a legal product ignore the fact that no legal product confers the right to harm someone else, e.g. a pen is a legal product but that doesn’t mean you can poke someone’s eye out with it!

Since the release of the USSG Reports like the one mentioned above, the industry and its surrogates have switched to other arguments, such as:

1) This is a private business decision in bars and restaurants
2) It’s a matter of choice and if you don’t like SHS find somewhere that’s smoke-free
3) It will put people out of business
4) The City has more important issues to address

None of the above is persuasive:

1. Private business decision -private businesses are subject to numerous government regulation, both before they open their doors to ensure compliance with electrical and other safety codes, and even once they open them, and this is especially true of establishments that serve food to avoid or limit food poisoning. Does anyone suggest putting up a sign outside a bar or restaurant that says “Eat/drink here at own risk due possible contamination”? I don’t think so.

2. Choice - Whether or not you “choose” to smoke [although for most smokers it's an addiction and not a choice] is irrelevant to the safety and health issue here. Government has a duty to protect the public health and welfare in every way possible and in the case of secondhand smoke it’s a relatively simple and inexpensive problem to address, unlike, for example, asbestos remediation.

3. Loss of business - The tobacco industry and its surrogates are using the fear of loss of business very successfully to defeat smoke-free air laws. That is their new big stick to beat them back. The evidence on this is mixed though, with numerous studies showing no or little impact, or a dip followed by a recovery. But when it comes to health and welfare that should take precedence. If we had a serious swine flu epidemic in St. Louis that required businesses to be shut down, they would be, just as happened recently in Mexico City at a cost of $500 million to the local economy. If a business was contaminated with asbestos it would be shut down until that it removed too, assuming that was economically feasible.

4. The City has bigger problems - Mort Hill made this last argument writing: “Our schools are in shambles, infrastructure is shot, the riverfront is a disaster and downtown is a ghost town. Their priority and solution is a ban on smoking in bars. Are they out of ideas?”

Those are all valid concerns and they need to be dealt with but that doesn’t take away from the need to address this long-overdue issue of secondhand smoke. Providing smoke-free air may well help the City by improving not only the health of its citizens but also its image, and help promote it as a destination.
When I first moved to St. Louis with my family in 1980 I spent the first few months exploring the metro area, and discovered that most of interesting destinations were in the City. Fortunately, many were smoke-free but when it came to shopping and eating out smoke-free was the exception, so we avoided spending money in those locations. I’ll welcome the day when I can go anywhere in St. Louis - including a bar or restaurant - knowing I won’t have to endure SHS exposure. But more importantly will be that all employees in those workplaces won’t have to endure secondhand smoke as a condition of holding a job either.

Smoker, what bar/restaurant do you know that bans a smoker from entry? None that I know of. Smokers welcome, smoke is not!

Mr. smoker,

I don’t have the freedom to drive 100 mph without consequences because it’s dangerous to others on the road.

I don’t have the freedom to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater — that isn’t on fire — without consequences because it presents a dangerous situation to those in the building.

I don’t have the freedom to urinate in your yard without consequences because it poses a health risk to the general public.

Get over the idea that free country means you can do whatever you want whenever you want. There are still rules and regulations that need to be enacted and enforced to ensure to safety of the greater population.

Yours in a smoke-free MO,
JPinSTL

Thank you, Martin, for stating the argument so eloquently!

Businesses are private not public. If you want public businesses, move to a country that supports that economic philosophy.

Mr. Ditka,

I assume, then, that you support restaurants no needing safety standards regarding food preperation.

Yours in washing hands after handling chicken,
JPinSTL

Raise the tax on cigarettes to $10.00 a pack and this is from a former smoker. Hardest thing I ever did was to quit but the best thing for my health and others.

SMOKER. I guess you missed the vote. U.S. Citizens decided to “Change” from those evil greed based freedoms that “American” was founded on. We now have a proper Authoritarian Central Government run society that knows its duty is to enforce state approved heatlh upon the unfaithful.

Martin,

Are you talking “pre-change” constituional days, or “post-change” autoritarian central govt run society?

The previously ascribed to constitution did not grant the powers you wish to dictate upon others. “Government has a duty to protect the public health and welfare in every way possible”. If you are not confusing it with the communist manifesto, you might be thinking of the part where it limites power to the government to provision of only general welfare- a far cry from your desired control.

The reason it was written that way was to prevent those like you from beintg able to utilize the lynch mob mentality to force their agenda on others.

We Americans liked it that way. Sorry you do not. We do not want your, the King’s, or Hitler’s version of the way Americans are supposed to live.

Do you have any kind of scientific idea what “smoke-free” air is. Certainly, no air in St. Louis City is smoke-free (unless air purifiers are used). Do you know that indoor cooking is the largest source of indoor smoke? Did you know that allowing you to cook your food causes health problems for you and everyone around you.

How about we ban your furnace and stove (we can leave your car, lawnmower, and blower out of it for now).

I agree: it’s not IF, it’s WHEN. I’m all for the ban. What you do at home is up to you. What you do in public, particularly if it’s obnoxious or dangerous, *that’s* when WE have a say.

See what happens to meddling liberal minds influence by recreational drugs?

they should be required to put the Chantix warning on all of the “NO smoking” signs.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fda-orders-harsher-warnings-on-zyban-chantix-2009711538360

Okay folks lets go over this one more time. If you do not want to breath second hand smoke, do not go into a privately owned business that allows its customers to smoke! No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to patronize an establishment that permits smoking. I think its totally hypocritical for Joe Edwards to support this measure in the city while he continues to allow smoking in the Pagent and Blueberry Hill. It does not require a law for Joe (whom I respect immensely) to ban smoking inside his places of business. I agree that smoking should be banned in all taxpayer supported institutions and government offices, thats a no brainer. I also would suggest a law be passed forcing operators of a business that does allow smoking to clearly display warning signs that smoking is allowed! Again, if you dont want to breath second hand smoke, do not patronize businesses that allow smoking!

Two academic economists have looked at the likely effect of a St. Louis City/County smoking ban on the St. Louis City bar & restaurant industry. One predicts a smoking ban will cut City restaurant employment 1.1 percent and bar employment 19.7 percent. The other predicts that a substantial portion of City restaurants and 80 percent of St. Louis City bars will suffer losses due to the ban.

This is a wasted effort folks. Mr. Dooley is a big-time smoker and is never going to approve this on his own. That is why he favors the state-wide ban, which makes him unaccountable.

Even Arnold, which has a ban, isn’t really a ban. It is separate and equal. You can go to 54th Street Grill or The Legends and smoke. But in Arnold, there has to be a seperate venilation system. So there are smoke free areas, but it is not totally smoke-free. Or you can go to the Arnold Dirt-Cheap or Arnold Bowl and people are just puffing away.

Which is fine. If you don’t like it, then don’t go. I don’t smoke, I also prefer smoke-free. But I also don’t care for the government telling business owners what to do.

I do not plan on voting for Mr. Dooley. I am still mad about him foisting his trash district and trash transfer center on my neighborhood. But it does warm my heart thinking about the folks that are really want to vote for him, but are tormented about his smoking views. Aw, that’s too bad.