Illegalizing what’s legal

 While it’s no big secret that smoking can harm your health, the ban that St. Louis County voted on and approved Tuesday is misguided.

Thanks to the voters of St. Louis County, it will become harder for smokers to light up in most public places in both the county and the city.

 

For a non-smoker, this means clearer, fresher air in their favorite public place. For a smoker, it means freezing outside in the wintertime, only to receive dirty looks and fake coughs from passersby. However, even non-smokers can agree that the way the ban, or Proposition N, is being executed is wrong.

 

First, less than 20 percent of eligible voters voted last Tuesday, and only two-thirds of those who did favored the smoking ban—that means that greater than 80 percent of the population of eligible voters in St. Louis County and City had their smoking rights decided on by a minority of the population. Be that as it may, at least St. Louis County residents were able to vote on their smoking rights; although St. Louis City will have to adhere to the ban, city residents did not vote. Instead, the city’s Board of Aldermen passed the ban contingent on the county results. 

 

The reason? Smoking in public places causes a public health concern. Second-hand smoke kills right? Actually, there are studies, not well publicized by the government or anti-smoking campaigns, which show the effects of secondhand smoke to be statistically irrelevant. However, there are studies that say precisely the opposite. Either way, if the smoking ban was really brought to St. Louis to save the lives of non-smokers, why will it still allow people to smoke in some “drinking establishments” (those deriving less than 25 percent of their revenue from food) and most importantly, “casino gaming areas?” 

 

We venture to guess one reason is because the Board of Aldermen, Mayor Francis Slay, and the rest of the St. Louis government, did not want to have to deal with the lucrative casino industry’s steadfast lobbyists. Unfortunately that is not the case for smaller smoking establishments in St. Louis.

 

In these tough economic times, any measure that will harm small businesses such as tobacco shops and bowling allies is a poor decision. The almost-20 percent of voters who did vote were shortsighted, to say the least.

 

Instead of a blanket ban on bars and restaurants, the owner of each should be able to decide whether their establishment will be smoke-free or not in order to please their clientele. If you are a non-smoker who frequents a bar where smoking is allowed and it bothers you, tough. Find a new place to go that does not allow smoking. If enough people stop frequenting a place because it allows smoking, the place will either ban smoking, or go bankrupt. That’s capitalism. 

 

No matter if you dislike the smell of smoke, it does not make the act of smoking illegal. Just because smokers annoy you, is not enough reason to start taking away their rights. 

 

Stopping the spread of second-hand smoke may seem noble at first glance, but the way St. Louis is doing it is limiting both personal freedoms and harming small business owners who cannot afford lobbyists to get them onto the elite “exemptions” portion of Proposition N.