Kudos to Five Mayors Willing to Stand Up to Smoking Bullies

By Chad Garrison Mon., Jan. 26 2009 at 9:16 AM

Categories: Bars, Bidness, Community, Smoking Bans

Congratulations to the mayors of Clayton, Creve Coeur, Olivette, Overland and University City. Last month they sent a letter to the St. Louis County Council and other municipal mayors asking for a county-wide ban on smoking in public places.

These five mayors did so despite the loud and vitriolic protests of the smoking minority and the real threat of losing votes to business owners who say a smoking ban would cost them customers. The latter concern has some merit should the ban take place only in St. Louis County, but efforts are also afoot to prohibit smoking in public places in St. Louis City.

As I wrote a few weeks back, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has suggested he'd pursue a regional smoking ban that included St. Louis County. Still, smoking opponents face one possible -- and very significant -- roadblock.

Dooley, I say to you: Butt out!

I'm not sure if St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley is still a cigarette smoker, but he was back in 2005 when former council member Kurt Odenwald suggested a bill that would ban smoking in public places in the county. Dooley snuffed out Odenwald's proposal like a stale Pall Mall, and non-smoking bar patrons and employees in the county have been paying the price ever since.

Let's hope that this time around Dooley is more receptive to the majority of his constituents. Having to step outside to smoke a cigarette is not persecution.

Tags:

Charlie Dooley, Francis Slay, smoking bans, St. Louis, St. Louis County

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I just believe that Apple would be better suited to try to market the iPad as something that could be used in schools or could be used as a way to revolutionize how we read our news every morning.''
Mr. Pion, Smoke-Free St. Louis City released a poll in August that implied 60 percent of St. Louis City residents favored a smoking ban in bars. On Fox 2 News I warned that the poll was misleading and the real public support for a smoking ban in bars was much smaller. I am still just trying to set things straight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVHfejA-D2E OSHA does allow workplace smoke in other industries such as welding as long as it is reduced to a minimum by ventilation or filtration. St. Louis bars and restaurants that allow smoking already comply with OSHA air quality standards. Why should St. Louis impose such a selectively perfectionistic air quality standard on bars and restaurants that currently allow smoking, one that is stricter than OSHA's?
Bill Hannegan is being selective here, picking a public opinion poll that serves his ends while ignoring others that do not, e.g. a 2007 Gallup Poll on-line at http://tinyurl.com/756ocz does show that 29% favor smoke-free air in bars but also that 54% favor totally smokefree restaurants. However, why should public health be determined by public opinion polls?! We certainly don't do this with other issues affecting public safety and health. For example, we don't leave food safety in restaurants entirely up to the individual private restaurant owner: local government conducts regular inspections to ensure that food is handled safely and hygienically, and cooked at the correct temperature. And if the establishment doesn't meet safety standards it is graded accordingly and may even be closed down. Those who are opposed to similar regulations to ensure the public is not exposed to secondhand smoke use absurd arguments, invoking such catch phrases as "freedom," and "choice," when in fact they are doing the exact opposite: denying the public and employees freedom from avoidable health and environmental hazards and being assured a safe work environment. All that is asked of a smoker is not to use the product in a way to endanger others. They are not prohibited from using it when endangering their OWN health. It's no different from drinking and driving: you may do either one alone, but not together when you endanger an innocent motorist's life. Martin Pion President, Missouri GASP www.mogasp.org
Chad, a majority of St. Louisans do not favor a smoking ban. Dooley wants to keep St. Louis a free and tolerant place. He won't push a ban. http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2009/01/only-245-percent-of-st-louis-city.html
Oh wah, I'm a smoker who can't be a total asshat in public everywhere. Cry me a GD river, you drain on health resources.
How about going back to school for a history lesson. You resort to descriptors such as "minority" and "majority" as a refuge in your defense. Anyone who wanted to debate with any honor would avoid it since our founding fathers made it perfectly clear that we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy, where the minority is to receive equal protection and not be subjected to mob rule. Geeez, in your ill-reasoned world blacks should never have won anything.
More than 50 studies show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than they pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. Passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus, so the anti-smokers' studies, which are all based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires, have been cynically DESIGNED to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm The anti-smokers have committed the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on smoking and passive smoking, as well as ignoring other types of evidence that proves they are lying, such as the fact that the death rates from asthma have more than doubled since their movement began. http://www.smokershistory.com/newviews.htm And it's a lie that passive smoking causes heart disease. AMI deaths in Pueblo actually ROSE the year after the smoking ban. http://www.smokershistory.com/etsheart.html
Who is the real bully here? The 'nasty' smoker who makes non-smokers suffer their bad habit? Or the 'whiny' non-smoker who pushes their agenda against smokers. As a non-smoker, I know I would absolutely LOVE IT if I could see a show at Cicero's, or get drinks at Seamus without coughing up a lung the next day. But I can't peel my eyes away from the part where we are talking about the government (be it local or state) telling a privately owned business what they can and cannot do do, and I don't feel the state should have that power. I don't care if the ban would harm business or not, it should be up to the business owner what to allow, and it should be up to us as customers to vote with our wallets. There are non-smoking places we can go, and we should, so that others will see that a smoke-free bar or venue CAN thrive. This weekend, I saw a sign prohibiting concealed weapons at an office, and I had an interesting thought. We now have a law specifically allowing citizens to carry a firearm, and that law leaves it up to businesses whether or not to prohibit firearms within their walls. That seems more fair to me. So vote with your wallets and your voice will be heard.
Thanks for looking out for my rights! Oh wait, this is actually taking away my rights, thanks...
Here is something for the Smoking-ban people to ponder. If you think a smoking ban will help to clean the air in public places, and start to makea more healthy city, then why stop there. Think about this. What is keeping the smoking ban activist from not going after fast food, saying "it will make people more healthy." There are some people that will never be happy unless they have someone or something to persecute and try to abolish just because they do not like it. The world revoles around choices made. I make the choice to smoke, and when I go to a bar, I make the choice to smoke there. Here is a solution, there are such things as smoke free establishments around the city and county. If you do not like to be around smoke, then go there, instead of taking the mind set of "if I do not like it, then I must try to abolish it"
Of course I noticed that the Mayor of Town and Country did not sign the letter. Jon Dalton is a full time lobbyist in Jefferson City and over the years has had four different cigaratte manufactors as clients. Thank you for smoking...and so much for the health of citizens coming before a lobbyist's clients.