Clayton To Go Smoke-Free While St. Louis Debates
Board Bill #46 has been introduced at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. If approved it would make establishments in St. Louis smoke-free. The trick, is it would not go into affect until St. Louis County passed a similar measure. To give the County the political leg it needed to pass a smoke-free law I supported such a trigger mechanism. But last month neighboring municipality and county seat, Clayton, took a big step closer to going smoke-free by July 2010:
Last night the Clayton board of aldermen gave initial approval to a smoking ban for businesses and restaurants that would go into effect in July 2010.
The bill needs one more reading before becoming law, though it looks to be virtual done deal at this point. Just one alderman voted against the ban yesterday and that’s because he believes it is too weak. (He’d like to see smoking prohibited in public parks and green spaces, as well.)
When the ban becomes law, Clayton will become only the second of St. Louis County’s 91 municipalities to enact a smoking ban.
Last night, Clayton mayor Linda Goldstein said she hoped her city would prove to be an inspiration. “If we pass this ordinance, Clayton will serve as an example to other municipalities and will give them encouragement to pass similar legislation.” (Source: RFT)
While Illinois is smoke-free, the only smoke-free municipality among the 91 in St. Louis County is the Western suburb of Ballwin. The Jefferson County of Arnold is also [partially] smoke-free. But with the abutting suburb of Clayton expected to be smoke-free by July 2010 it changes the political landscape for the City of St. Louis, to a degree.
The bill to make St. Louis smoke-free was introduced by 28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson. Her ward includes the many restaurants along Euclid Ave in the Central West End as well as the city’s portion of the Loop along Delmar.  Most of the Loop is in University City, in St. Louis County. Krewson doesn’t want to pit establishments against each other, especially on the same street.
University City Mayor Joe Adams was among five Mayors that signed a letter in January urging the St . Louis County Council to adopt county-wide smoke-free legislation. Clayton’s Goldstein was another. University City abuts both Clayton & St. Louis. Will University City also adopt smoke-free legislation? If so, the Loop could be smoke-free end to end without action by St. Louis County — if University City & the City of St. Louis both passed smoke-free ordinances.
I recently tried the trendy Loop pizza place Pi, located in the City’s section of the Loop. As regular readers know, I only patronize smoke-free establishments. The hour long wait to be seated confirmed a place can be both smoke-free and successful. For the record, it was totally worth the wait!
The restaurant business is tough. I can think of many places, both smoking & smoke-free, that have closed over the years. Smoke-free laws are often blamed for the closure of establishments that likely would have closed anyway. But as we all know places close with or without smoke-free laws. The smoke-free laws are simply an easy scapegoat for failed businesses and pro-smoking advocates.
Clayton & Ballwin do not have one thing St. Louis does: casinos. While casinos are not for me, I know I’d avoid Missouri casinos and head to Illinois if so inclined. But casinos have disproportionally more smokers than the population. Would St. Louis’ lose business to nearby casino’s if it went smoke-free? Maybe, maybe not. A tourist in town wanting to take a drag as they pulled the slot machine lever would find casinos on both sides of the river downtown smoke-free. Would they drive or take a cab to a smokey casino in St. Louis County or St. Charles County? Perhaps? The question is if customers & employees at St. Louis casinos should continue to be subjected to unhealthy air because of a fear of a loss of tax revenue?
So perhaps St. Louis’ smoke-free bill should be amended to take affect upon the earliest of two events: 1) the active date of a St. Louis County smoke-free ordinance or 2) January 1, 2011. If the St. Louis County Council passes a smoke-free regulation that would go into affect on say August 1, 2010 then St. Louis’ law would be triggered for that same date. But otherwise St. Louis would go smoke-free on January 1, 2011 — six months after Clayton. This doesn’t address the casino issue but it does give other municipalities the comfort of knowing they would not be alone if they too went smoke-free.
St. Louis’ bill is in the Health & Human Services committee chaired by 27th Ward Alderman Gregory Carter. My Alderman, Kacie Starr Triplett (6th Ward) , is on this committee.
UPDATE 6/2/09 @ 3pm — added the word “partially” before Arnold.
Divided by design: new laws like this one is seen by the impacted as “going backwards” while by surrounding municipalities as a “great business opportunity”.
John Connelly, the man who help lead the waterfront cleanup and convinced local-state leadership to legalize riverboat gambling in the early ’90s (President Casinos Inc), once stated “I don’t have a love affair with rivers. I have a love affair with a five-letter word — M-O-N-E-Y.” The casino concept was marketed to the public as a means of improving StL, particularly the public schools. What happened- did they? The “Con story” reminds me of how business leaders get elected leaders to use marketing as a means to trump sound policies.
A completely smoke-free palace in Kirkwood, Amigos Cantina, is completely packed and has recently expanded to include a smoke free patio.
It is such a shame I have to wait till 2010 to eat in most places in Clayton, although Remy’s is smoke free and I will continue to go there as always.
If the City of St Louis goes smoke free, I’ll move back to the Central West End from the county.
Steve, I’d be glad to bet you or anyone else 100 dollars that the Ballwin smoking ban will be gone by the end of this summer.
Arnold isn’t “smoke-free.” Arnold has an ordinance banning smoking in restaurants that seat more than 50 people, but the ordinance doesn’t touch stand-alone bars or any other workplace.
Tell the truth, Steve.
When I moved to the USA/Missouri I was appalled to find that smoking was still allowed here, even in family restaurants. A municipalities ability or inability to pass a complete smoking ban speaks to it’s overall intelligence. I suppose in a society with private health insurance there is little incentive to pass laws that promote the wellness of others if the consequences don’t directly hit your wallet. Sad. I truly hope STL is successful, it would greatly increase the quality of life for all.
This’ll actually be a good test case, better than Ballwin – if the range of restaurants and bars in Clayton survive relatively unscathed, then the argument for bans in other parts of the metro area will carry much more weight. And if business drops off markedly, it can also be used as an argument. Personally, the reason I don’t patronize restaurants in Clayton more often isn’t the smoking, it’s the challenges with finding free parking! 😉
A University of Wisconsin economist has just looked at St. Louis City smoking rates and determined that a St. Louis City smoking ban would cost the City one out of five bar jobs. He said a 20 percent employment reduction means places will be closing, not just cutting back. Alderman Carter was very interested in what this economist had to say.
I don’t think casual exposure to cigarette smoke is going to do much harm to anyone. Avoiding smoking restaurants because of the health hazard seems a little more like hysteria than anything.
The people who are really in danger are the employees, the ones who are immersed in second-hand smoke day in and day out.
Also, Bill, did the economist study anything about the savings in health care that a decrease in smoking venues produces? If people have to pay less in doctor bills they are going to use that money on consumer goods and services.
Angelo, not in that estimate. Here is a link to the research upon which he bases his St. Louis City estimate:
http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art12/
Angelo
What your speaking of has been studied. Over the years there have a been a couple of reports that based on the cost of smoking. Essentially what they said was that smokers more than offset their cost in a couple of ways. First they pay more in taxes in the form of state and excise taxes on tobacco. Secondly – they do not live as long. They claim less in Social Security than a non-smoker would.
Your also speaking to SHS and the non-smoker. What I can tell is that the insurance industry would be the most sensitive to the subject no both health and life.
On health – even smoking is a nominal surcharge to what a non-smoker pays. Its not a driving factor in rating. Weight, personal history and family history play a much larger factor. Life is were smokers pay far more than non-smokers. Life insurance for a smoker is usually two-thirds to double what a non-smoker pays depending on the policy and length of coverage. On second-hand smoke – there is not to my knowledge a surcharge for living with or working in environments with SHS. Even if a husband smokes and the wife doesn’t – she gets the rate as if both were non-smokers.
These huge savings put forth by anti-smoking groups as a reason for ban are without merit. They estimate only the direct cost of health care for a smoker. They don’t take in the most common fact – non-smokers no matter how healthy will get sick and die. Its like a gambler bragging about how much money they won last night. They don’t brag about their losses – its an incomplete picture.
If you didn’t intend to mislead re Arnold, why haven’t you changed your text to be less misleading? It still says Arnold is “smoke-free.” As you yourself now admit, that’s not true.
Also, once the Mo. Court of Appeals strikes down KC’s ban later this month, all the others that ban smoking in any places deemed “not considered a public place” in 191.769 R.S.Mo. (Ballwin, Chillicothe, Columbia, Independence, Kirksville, Lee’s Summit, Nixa, and North KC) will be invalid as a matter of law, and the pending illegal bans in Clayton and St. Louis City will be null and void. Their definitions of “public place” will have been struck down, making those laws dead in the water.
So all this is a waste of time anyway.
The success or failure of small local bans gives very limited information. If you read the study Dave Kuneman and I did several years ago that examined entire states you find the true story: large areas with smoking bans tend get hit, and hit hard, in an economic sense… particularly in their hospitality industries. You might read out study and feel the effect is too large to be true, but no one has ever offered substantive criticism of either the methodology nor the figures, which are both fully accessible and verifiable by anyone interested… unlike those at the base of some studies used to promote smoking bans.
See our studies and the others not funded by NicoGummyPatchyProductPeople and antismoking funded groups at:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/economic.html
and feel free to offer criticisms if you have any.
One more note: in terms of casinos, even if you do NOT have a convenient nearby venue to drive to you can see the effects of statewide bans on closely related charitable gambling revenues in Minnesota. See:
http://arclightzero.web.officelive.com/Documents/MNGraph.pdf
{The figures for 2008 continue the disastrous trend to such a great extent that the “worldwide economic meltdown” at the end is little more than a blip on the screen after the havoc caused by the smoking ban. I do not have that graph up on the web yet, but anyone who would like it is welcome to email me through my website at http://www.antibrains.com }
To see the way antismoking interests have twisted their studies to support bans, read Jacob Grier’s May 27th column and aftercomments at:
http://www.jacobgrier.com
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
I believe you can add Liberty, MO and probably the State of IL to the list of bans that will be changed or altered soon to allow smoking again. It’s hard to register new laws that MIGHT hurt a business –even in the slightest — wait until the economy recovers.
p.s.- I would like to ban crying babies from restaurants also, they cause me stress which adversely affects my overall health.
The study Bill cites above also says that restaurants (as opposed to bars) see a neutral or positive impact from smoking bans.
The study cites employment which is different from revenue. My brother is a truck driver that is paid hourly. In this downturn – he has had several weeks in which he worked a day or two – not the usual five. In this case – the economy hasn’t affected employment statistics – but has the drop in revenue has affected how many hours have been worked. Bars like restaurants may cut back on how many hours of labor they burn when revenue is down. The waitress or cook may only work four days instead of five or five hours instead of four. The real employment loss from bars is that they close.
When Dr. Cotti sent me the bar and restaurant employment impact statement for a strict smoking ban in St. Louis City, I hesitated for a long time about sending it to anyone besides the Health and Human Services Committee. It is so easily misunderstood. But the 19.7 bar employment loss for the City was too important to hold back. Dr. Cotti said that meant places closing, not just laying people off.