Bill Hannegan is a resident of St Louis County, and actively opposes St Joseph’s proposed draft clean air ordinance. We asked him for his reasons:
Concerning public smoking laws, St. Joseph council members should look hard at what happened with the St. Louis County smoking ban and not make the same mistakes.
What mistakes did St. Louis County make?
First, in 2009 St. Louis County put a smoking ban up to a popular vote. Public health laws have never been, and should never be, put on the ballot. Voters do not have the time or interest to review economic and scientific information necessary to make a solid and fair decision. And the small business owner who wants to continue to allow smoking does not have the means to make his case to the voting public. Instead it is the job of elected councilmen to read all the evidence and then make a decision that is fair to the business owner.
The second mistake St. Louis County made was to put arbitrary exemptions into the smoking ban: one for the casino gaming floors, and another for drinking establishments with less than 25 percent food sales. This arbitrary exemption scheme hurt many establishments that served too much food to be exempt. Nonsmokers did not show up at these venues to take the place of the smokers who stayed home or went to “smoking allowed” establishments. In response, bars that could not allow smoking ignored the law or suffered financial harm.
Right now Councilman Mike O’Mara of the St. Louis County Council is taking action to correct our faulty smoking ban. Bar owners are asking Councilman O’Mara to replace the unfair exemption based on food percentages with a reasonable exemption for establishments only open to those over 21. St. Louis County would have done best to have left the smoking ban issue alone and let every owner make his own choice. Most businesses had already opted to ban smoking. But if St. Louis County felt the need to impose a public smoking law, it should have continued to allow all adult establishments free choice with an exemption for “over 21″ businesses. Very few businesses would suffer under such an arrangement.
I hope St. Joseph will avoid the mistakes we made in St. Louis.
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