City Smoking Ban Exemption

Based on the RFT article this week, it looks like there will be a battle in St. Louis City over the meaning of the word "bar" and "incidental" in the St. Louis City Smoke Free Air Act of 2009.

But when the Health and Human Services Committee was about to vote on the bar exemption of the St. Louis City Smoke Free Air Act of 2009, the committee had someone, I believe it was Commissioner Robert W. Kraiberg himself, from the Excise Division of the City of St. Louis Department of Public Safety, come down to define what a bar is. The official said that a bar was any place not a restaurant by their definition. So the committee voted that day for the exemption based on the definition of a bar as an establishment that serves less than 50 percent food. Here is the definition of a restaurant put forth by the Excise Division:

"Restaurant" means any establishment where at least fifty percent (50%) of the gross income is derived from the sale of food consumed on the premises of the establishment or which has an annual gross income of at least two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars ($275,000.00) from the sale of prepared meals or food consumed on such premises. (Ord. 61289 § 2 (part), 1989.)
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/cco/code/title14.htm