The Board of Aldermen is considering banning smoking in St. Louis restaurants and bars. There was a public hearing today and another is Wednesday at City Hall.

While there seems to be a very good chance of the aldermen passing this piece of legislation there's one HUGE catch.

Unless St. Louis County passes a smoking ban, the ban in St. Louis won't take effect.

The idea of doing it this way is to keep the ban from hurting St. Louis restaurants and bars whose customers could just hop on over to a county establishment to enjoy a smoke with their food and drink.

I talked to a spokesperson for the St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley today who says Dooley is fine with a state-wide ban, but has no desire to implement one in St. Louis County.

So if the county isn't smoke-free, the city won't be smoke-free unless the state goes smoke-free.

2 Comments

Jason Vander Weele said:

I disagree that it would be "meaningless". It would, in fact, put the pressure on the County to go smoke-free. Dooley is up for election soon, perhaps he won't be re-elected? There is that possibility.

June 30, 2009 7:16 PM

http://www.kmov.com/about/blogpics/schnyder.js said:

Good point, Jason. Mark

June 30, 2009 8:59 PM

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