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Poll, How Long Before the City of St. Louis Will Be Smoke-Free

June 14, 2009 Smoke Free, Weekly Poll 10 Comments

You oppose, favor or are neutral about smoke-free legislation. Regardless of your perspective on the merits of smoke-free laws, I want your opinion on when you think the City of St. Louis will be covered by smoke-free legislation. Here is the question:

Clayton will go smoke-free in July 2010. Regardless of your view on such laws, at what point do you think the City of St. Louis will go smoke-free, if ever?

The possible answers are:

Before the end of 2009
January 2010
same time as Clayton – July 2010
January 2011
Only upon a statewide ban
January 2012
Never — not for City or Missouri
By January 2015
Unsure/Don’t Care

Remember this is not about when you want it passed or don’t want it passed. You may, for example, oppose smoke-free laws but think it will be in effect by January 2011. Or if you are like me, you want these laws in effect yesterday, but realize it will not happen as quickly as you’d like. So when you vote in the poll don’t select the answer you’d like to see but what you think will be the outcome.

You can find the poll in the sidebar to the right.

- Steve Patteron

JPRossJr

Steve, it’d be nice if you’d create a section on the website that would allow us to revisit the past polls you’ve taken, even after they’re closed. For example, I’ve just cast the 6th vote in this poll. I’m curious how it will trend after more people weigh in. But unless I’m lucky enough to come back and look immediately before you swap it out for the new poll, then I miss the final results.

[slp --- I've been thinking about a way to display prior closed polls. The polls are changed on the weekends --- usually on Sunday. That gives you all week to look at the results. Starting with this poll I've got it visible in the right sidebar regardless of where you are on the site. So come back everyday and when you do just glance at the poll results.]
http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/ Bill Hannegan

The St. Louis City budget shortfall this year will be about 10 million dollars. Unpaid furloughs by city officials and workers will deal with only 3.5 million of that.

Yet Alderman Lyda Krewson has chosen this moment in a bad economy to propose a City/County smoking ban, the St. Louis City Smoke Free Air Act of 2009, now being considered by the Health and Human Services Committee.

Since Alderman Krewson proposed the smoking ban, a University of Wisconsin economist has estimated that a St. Louis City smoking ban would cut St. Louis City restaurant employment 1.1 percent and City bar employment 19.7 percent. And Federal Reserve economists have just released a study blaming the Illinois smoking ban for a twenty percent decline in Illinois casino revenues.

St. Louis City aldermen know that St. Louis City can’t afford a smoking ban right now, yet the pressure on them to impose one continues.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2009/2009-027.pdf
Brian

Even North Carolina, aka “Tobacco Road,” just passed state legislation to go smoke-free January 2, 2010.
Nancy Kalin

My personal opion is leave the smoking class people alone. As some won’t spend money in places that allow smoking I will not patronize and spend my money in a place that will not allow me my right of smoking. I’m an adult and as such it is no concern to you, the government or anyone else should I want to smoke. As a restaurant or bar owner this is my property the city is not making my mortgage payments government has no business telling me that I cannot do as I please with my own establishment (unless they want to make the mortgage payments for me) its up to the people who visit those establishments to decide if they will go into these places and if they go there and they allow smoking then go elsewhere if that bothers you. I know when I go out to eat the first thing I ask is for smoking, if there is none I leave and take my money elsewhere!!!

Nancy Kalin
equals42

Bill:

When would be a good time to safeguard public health? Should we wait for a booming economy in St Louis to protect workers and patrons from smokers’ cancerous habit? The arguments against the ban change with the times but the tune remains the same: property owners’ rights and loss of jobs.

I simply don’t believe that the amorphous people and reports you refer to are correct. Most states in this country have passed such laws with little to no effect on restaurants and bars. Entire countries have passed the law without significant loss of business. From wikipaedia: A 2003 review of 97 such studies of the economic effects of a smoking ban on the hospitality industry found that the “best-designed” studies concluded that smoking bans did not harm businesses. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1136%2Ftc.12.1.13]

Even were I to follow your belief that 1% of restaurant employees and 19.7% of bar employees were to lose their employ with such a ban, a few jobs lost is a worthwhile cost for the benefit to society as a whole. I am sympathetic to people losing their jobs but such is life. Smoking is a nuisance and health danger. These jobs will be replaced.

BTW, 1% of restaurant employees must be within the study’s margin of error or be statistically insignificant in a city of 380,000 people. How many “bar” employees are there in the City? Steve mentioned in earlier posts that there are 13,000 casino, bar and restaurant employees in the City.
http://www.downtownstlbiz.blogspot.com Brian S.

Smoking’s not a right, Nancy.
http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/ Bill Hannegan

This is the study from which Dr. Cotti derives the St. Louis City bar employment loss number:

http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art12/
Mike

When will the goverment start treating citizens like adults? Goodness gracious. If the goverment wants to ban smoking in a goverment building, fine. But they have no constitutional authority to force a private business to ban smoking. I can guarantee you that if this is passed, private vehicles and homes will be next.
Allan

I’ve first-hand witnessed the effects of Illinois’ state ban(plus various local smoking bans that existed in the 2 years after a smoking ban local control bill passed, and before the state ban begun), and I can absolutely assure Saint Louisians that the effects of a smoking ban(regardless if local or statewide) are NOT pretty. Casinos throughout the state of Illinois are DOWN by greater than 20% statewide, and many bars have had to either cut back staff or their hours, thanks to the state ban. Also, many bars ignore the ban throughout the state to keep their customers coming.

Your city has a great luxury in leaving free choice up to each private business(and one I’m jealous people in other cities still get to enjoy, as a Chicagoian who no longer can enjoy how my city once was), and it’d be ridiculous to take it away from all private business, all because of the demands of selfish anti-smoking groups. To all who are opposing the Saint Louis city ban, please keep fighting this proposal, and all other local, county, + regional ban proposals that surface. I’m sorry to hear Clayton did pass a local smoking ban, and ignored the restauranteurs that highlighted Ballwin’s problems after they passed a smoking ban.

Hope Smoke-Free STL City will be happy with all the ban defiance that will occur under a city ban, like it has in one state having a smoking ban:
http://www.smokechoke.com/
linda

i still wii smoke outside but the bars should still be smokeing

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