Activists hope poll will reignite smoking debate
West End Word
by Jenny Fisher - September 3, 2008

A coalition of St. Louis city residents, organizations and businesses released poll results Aug. 19 showing that a majority of city residents support a smoking ban in most indoor public places.

The coalition, Smoke-Free St. Louis City, is a group of citizens, organizations and a handful of businesses that aims to educate St. Louisans about the dangers of secondhand smoke. In the long term, they hope to see a smoke-free policy adopted in St. Louis city.

A survey conducted by the Mellman Group showed that 62 percent of 500 city residents polled favor a law prohibiting smoking in "most indoor public places, including all workplaces, public buildings, offices, restaurants, bars and casinos," even after hearing arguments opposing such an ordinance. Currently, only city-owned and -operated workplaces are required to be smoke-free.

Furthermore, 81 percent of those polled believe all workers in the city should be protected from secondhand smoke, not just those in city-owned and operated workplaces, and 76 percent say they would like to be able to go to restaurants, bars and casinos without coming home smelling of cigarette smoke.

"Every St. Louis city worker and resident has the right to breathe smoke-free indoor air," said coalition coordinator Jason Vander Weele. Vander Weele compared smoking prohibitions to food-safety and hand-washing regulations, saying it was a basic health precaution. "This is an opportunity for St. Louis city to be a leader in public health," said Vander Weele.

According to a 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report on secondhand smoke, there is no risk-free level of secondhand-smoke exposure. Breathing in secondhand smoke for even a short time can increase the risk of a heart attack and can trigger an asthma attack in children who have asthma. In the long term, secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Separating smokers from nonsmokers, installing air-cleaning technologies and ventilating buildings does not fully eliminate secondhand-smoke exposure, according to the 2006 report.

"The only way to completely eliminate exposure is to eliminate indoor smoking," said Dr. Jerome Cohen, a cardiologist at St. Louis University Hospital who is also an American Heart Association volunteer and serves on the association's state-advocacy committee.

Smoke-Free St. Louis was formed last summer by a group of health organizations in St. Louis, including the American Can-cer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the St. Louis University Cancer Center.

"[The poll] kind of came on the heels of the debate happening in Illinois at the time and seeing this movement across the country toward smoke-free workplaces," said Stacy Reliford, the American Cancer Society representative to Smoke-Free St. Louis.

The Smoke-free Illinois act, which went into effect this January, prohibits smoking in virtually all public places and workplaces and makes Illinois the 23rd state to pass a law banning indoor smoking. Smoke-free laws also exist at the city level. According to the American Nonsmoker's Rights Foundation, there are more than 2,800 municipalities in the United States with local laws in effect that restrict where smoking is allowed, including Ballwin, Arnold and Columbia, Mo.

Efforts to ban smoking in St. Louis city and in St. Louis County have been less successful. In 2003, Aldermen Freeman Bosley Sr. and Gregory Carter succeeded in passing an ordinance that banned smoking in all city buildings, except in the public smoking areas of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, which is managed by the city.

Two years later, St. Louis County council member Kurt Odenwald sponsored a bill to ban indoor smoking in the county. Odenwald's bill, which in its initial draft would have banned smoking in all bars and restaurants, met great opposition from bar and restaurant owners and from Harrah's Casino. The council debated the bill for six months, revising it to exempt parts of casinos and bowling alleys and later to exempt bars and small restaurants. The bill was finally defeated 4-3 in August 2005 and again a year later when it again came up for a vote. In 2006, Odenwald, a Republican, lost his seat to Democrat Barbara Fraser.

According to Vander Weele, Smoke-Free St. Louis will "see over the next couple of months where the community wants to go" with the results of the poll. Reliford said the coalition hopes the poll results will get elected leaders and community members talking about smoke-free policies, with the ultimate goal of seeing such an indoor-smoking ban enacted.

Reliford said she was aware of business owners's fears that a smoke-free policy would drive customers away. But, she said, "this is about health, and whenever you take a stand for health you can never really lose."

The Forest Park Southeast bar rBar, which closed a few weeks ago, was a member of the Smoke-Free St. Louis coalition. Corey Lawson, who was one of the owners, said rBar supported the coalition because it was something that appealed to the people in their 20s who frequented rBar.

Lawson also said he would support an indoor-smoking ban in St. Louis city. "If I had it my way, it would be 'no smoking' just because of the work conditions," said Lawson. "No one likes to work twelve hours a night in smoke. But you have to do it -- it's business."

Lawson's bar will reopen as AM Lounge, a late-night lounge and nightclub that will be open from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. The new concept, Lawson said, doesn't work as a smoke-free environment.

"What we've learned in the last two years is that when you have earlier hours [as rBar did], the non-smoking is very important to people," said Lawson. But, he said, people who don't usually smoke often like to do so when they're out drinking late at night.

Bill Hannegan is one of those people. Hannegan, who works as a contractor, founded Keep St. Louis Free in 2005 to fight Odenwald's proposed smoking ban. He opposes smoking bans on the basis of personal freedom and property rights.

"A business owner has a right to use a property as he sees fit, unless he's doing something that's a public health threat," said Hannegan. Smoking is not a threat but a "nuisance," he said.

"We think that the dangers of secondhand smoke are really overstated in the first place," said Hannegan, "but we believe that air filtration takes care of it."

Hannegan objects to the way Smoke-Free St. Louis conducted the poll and to the way the questions were phrased. He believes the poll should have asked specifically about banning smoking in bars that have made an effort to clear the air with ventilation or other air cleaning systems. Hannegan cited a 2007 Gallup poll that found 29 percent of Americans favor prohibiting smoking in bars.

But that percentage has steadily increased since 1987, when 10 percent favored a smoking ban in bars.

Hannegan believes an indoor-smoking ban wouldn't pass in the city unless the county led the way. But 18th Ward Alderman Terry Kennedy, who is on the Health and Human Services Committee, said he thought the aldermen would support a citywide indoor-smoking ban regardless of the policy in St. Louis County. Kennedy said there is enough evidence to show that secondhand smoke is dangerous to people's health, and most aldermen no longer smoke themselves.

Smoke-Free St. Louis coalition members maintain that the city and the county are separate bodies that can act independently when it comes to smoke-free policy.

"The city is the city, and the residents here go to the bars and restaurants in their community and their neighborhood. They don't drive all over the place," Reliford said. "We don't normally look to the county to determine whether we should make people wash their hands."

Reliford said a smoking ban could be part of a revitalization of St. Louis city. "I think this is a way for the city to be a leader."