Reply to comment

Printer Friendly VersionE-mail ThisSave As PDF

St. Charles County smoking ban election unlikely until 2011
By Mark Schlinkmann
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The St. Charles County Council is unlikely to schedule an election on a countywide ban on smoking in enclosed public places until April 2011 at the earliest.

Councilwoman Cheryl Hibbeler, who has been urging the council to put the issue on the ballot this November, acknowledged Friday that probably won’t happen – based on her discussions  so far with other council members.

 Unless there’s a change of heart among her colleagues before the Aug. 24 deadline for putting issues on the November ballot, Hibbeler said, she’ll switch gears and “will very aggressively pursue it for the April election.”

Hibbeler, an O’Fallon Democrat,  is the only one of the seven council members who say now they’d support a November vote.

However, three of her colleagues support putting a smoking ban before voters sometime in 2011 -  Republicans Terry Hollander of St. Charles and Nancy Matheny of Weldon Spring and Democrat Jerry Daugherty of Portage des Sioux. That would be enough council votes to get the issue on the ballot, assuming they could agree on what to include in it.

That’s also assuming that those supporters up for election themselves in November will be returned to office.  Hollander and Matheny are running unopposed but Hibbeler will have an opponent. Also opposed in November will be Republican John White of St. Charles County, who is undecided on whether to have a smoking ban election.

Agreement on what to include in a smoking ban proposition may not be a cinch. For example, Daugherty wants no exemptions in the bill - either for places that serve mainly food or for the Ameristar Casino.  Hibbeler has suggested exempting the casino, fearing that Ameristar would finance an ad campaign against a ban.

 Two other council members, Republicans Joe Brazil of Defiance and Paul Wynn of O’Fallon, oppose smoking bans as an unwarranted government intrusion on business owners’ rights and oppose an election on the idea as well.

 White says if the council decides to schedule an election on smoking, he’d prefer next year instead of November.

 Hibbeler and leaders of an anti-smoking coalition had hoped St. Charles County could have a ban in place to go into effect in January, when smoking bans already are set to become law in St. Louis and across St. Louis County. Both the city and St. Louis County laws exempt casinos and taverns with relatively small amounts of food sales.

But other council members say it makes sense to hold off a decision in St. Charles County to see the initial effects of the St. Louis and St. Louis County bans and of a city prohibition set to go in effect Oct. 1 in Lake Saint Louis.

Kirkwood and Ballwin are now the only cities in St. Louis County with comprehensive bans; Clayton joins them next month.