Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Keep St. Louis Free official spokesmen.

David Kuneman and Tony Palazzolo are now official spokesmen for Keep St. Louis Free. Both men were featured with me in the South Side Journal article on Keep St. Louis Free last Friday.
http://southsidejournal.stltoday.com/articles/2008/08/22/news/doc48af269a1e45e161034126.txt

David is a brilliant research chemist who has rigorously investigated all aspects of the smoking ban issue and has been fighting smoking bans far longer than I. Airline pilot Kevin Kelly, who helped lead the grassroots effort against Odenwald's Lambert Airport smoking ban, rightly called Dave a "heavy hitter". Dave presented the official scientific case against Kurt Odenwald's 2005 smoking ban on behalf of the Missouri Restaurant Association:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/EMRS.html

Tony Pazzolo is a very astute observer of the St. Louis political scene and a excellent local advocate of freedom and property rights. Together Tony and Dave bring a nice balance to the Keep St. Louis Free voice on the smoking ban issue in St. Louis.

I hope to also soon add someone from Marth Brothers & Co. as a Keep St. Louis Free spokesman on issues of air filtration and ventilation.
http://www.marthbrothers.com/Indoor_Enviro_Solutions.html

I don't believe the St. Louis Board of Alderman has any plans to impose a smoking ban on the City of St. Louis. But if the issue does come up, we will mobilize our coalition of business owners and citizens who feel as we do about this issue of freedom and property rights.

In 2005 we mobilized all the bars and restaurants of St. Louis County with mailings, flyers and phone calls. Calling 800 businesses and hand addressing 800 envelopes, especially many times over and over, can be a daunting task. Furthermore we mailed over 168 hand-highlighted pages of the best medical and economic evidence against Odenwald's ban to all the County mayors, the County councilmen, City aldermen and journalists of St. Louis. Over 20,000 pages of evidence went out. It was a lot of time and money spent. But we will gladly do it again to preserve freedom and property rights in St. Louis.

Any attempt to impose a smoking ban on St. Louis will be a reason to unfurl the beautiful 70 foot banner Bill Christman painted for us, with its bright yellow 32 inch tall letters protesting any St. Louis smoking ban. The banner reads: "KEEP ST. LOUIS FREE! FIGHT THE SMOKING BAN!" We held this banner at County Council hearing many times. I takes at least 8 people to hold, preferably 12. Bill is a classic yet funky sign artist who started Blueberry Hill along with his old pal Joe Edwards. I am so glad that Bill is part of our freedom cause and I would love to hold his fun banner one more time!