Alderman Lyda Krewson's Panhandling Law Goes Too Far

http://stlcin.missouri.org/Document/aldermen/PDF/BB505cs.pdf

In restricting what citizens can say to each other on a public sidewalk, St. Louis City Alderman Lyda Krewson’s panhandling law goes too far. Really, the part of the law which defines, forbids and sets out penalties for a “aggressive panhandling” is sufficient protection of citizens from harassment. If someone says “No!” to a request for money, the exchange should be over. If it keeps on, harassment has begun and the police can step in.

There is no doubt that able-bodied men abuse the charity of others in St. Louis by panhandling. There is also no doubt that these men have hurt city businesses by scaring customers away. So this is a hard issue. Yet I believe St. Louis political leaders should err on the side of freedom and only vote in the aggressive panhandling sections of Board Bill 505.

If we restrict the freedom of citizens on St. Louis public sidewalks to ask each other for help, what speech will we restrict next?

Letter Against Senator Joan Bray's Missouri Smoking Ban

Senator Wilson,

Senator Joan Bray has just proposed a severe smoking ban for Missouri barsand restaurants. New research has shown such smoking bans to be a bad idea for Missouri business.

A month ago, Federal Reserve economist Dr. Michael Pakko published research showing that smoking bans do indeed hurt bars and some restaurants. Dr. Pakko urges lawmakers not to adopt "a Pollyannaish outlook in which communities can achieve public health benefits with no economic consequences."
http://stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2008/a/pages/smoking-ban.html

Dr. Pakko warns that bars and casinos are hardest hit by statewide smokingbans. Dr. Pakko cites the only peer-reviewed economic study of the effects of smoking bans not derived from data gathered either by public healthgroups or the bar/restaurant industry, but solely from governmentemployment data, which shows the huge detrimental effect smoking bans have on bars. Smoking bans could cut bar jobs in some states 14 percent!
http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art12/

Senator Wilson, the Illinois smoking ban is proving Dr. Pakko right.
After only a month, the Illinois smoking ban is starting to implode as casinos across the state are down 17 percent and hurting bar owners are organizing to overturn the ban:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/4191B2F0FB7B4967862573EA00202C5E?OpenDocument

Please, there is no need for a government imposed smoking ban in Missouri. Any bar or restaurant owner can ban smoking in his establishment, as his employees and patrons demand, all or part of the time his establishment is open.

Even better, bar and restaurant owners can install air filtration machines that will not only remove tobacco smoke, but all toxins, pathogens and irritants from bar air, including viruses, bacteria, chemicals, pollen,dust, mold, fungi and, most importantly, radon decay products, which the EPA claims causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year, seven times more than secondhand smoke is reputed to cause. Commercial air filtration machines are affordable and readily available. These are the same machines that currently protect Missouri welders from much more dangerous smoke to OSHA safety standards, they can also protect Missouri bartenders from stray tobacco smoke.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/tobacco.php

I don't work for any tobacco or air filtration company. I just see this technology as the right solution to this public health issue!

But please, don't put Senator Bray's smoking ban on Missouri bars and restaurants, especially not as a recession looms!

Sincerely,

Bill Hannegan
Keep St. Louis Free!

St. Charles City Council outlaws bars!

The St. Charles City Council just voted that from now on any St. Charles bar has to earn at least fifty percent of it revenue from food sales to stay in business. No true bar sells that much food!

This action by the St. Charles City Council amounts to a form of eminent domain abuse. St. Charles bar owner Justin Donahue wants to run a bar but the Council has a better use for Justin's property. The Council wants Justin to use his property to run a restaurant instead. Justin can't oblige and so is out of luck. This loss of freedom and property rights needs to be protested. Councilman Richard Veit was the lone council member with enough decency and good sense to vote against this unjust measure.

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/01/25/news/sj2tn20080124-0125stc_bars.ii1.txt

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/01/21/news/sj2tn20080119-0120stc_liquor_1.ii1.txt

Dr. Michael Siegel upbraids Campus-Community Alliances for Smoke-Free Environments (CASE)

Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Siegel today severely rebuked Campus-Community Alliances for Smoke-Free Environments or CASE, an antismoking group working to keep the Columbia smoking ban in place, for the false claims put forward on the CASE website. Here are a few sentences of Dr. Siegel's chastisement of CASE:

According to CASE: "The same half hour of secondhand smoke can cause atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) which leads to heart attacks and strokes." This claim appears on the organization's "Get the Facts" web page. Unfortunately, if you want to get the actual facts, you'll have to turn somewhere other than this web page. Because 30 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure cannot possibly cause atherosclerosis. Even in active smokers, it takes many years of tobacco smoke exposure before hardening of the arteries occurs. You cannot develop atherosclerosis in 30 minutes! This claim is so blatantly false - on its face - that it is really hard to imagine that CASE actually believes the statement is true.The research article upon which this claim is based demonstrates that 30 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure increases platelet activity. Somehow, the facts got lost in the translation. Instead of stating that 30 minutes of secondhand smoke activation causes platelet activation in nonsmokers, CASE instead embellished this to state that 30 minutes of smoke exposure causes hardening of the arteries. Unfortunately, the embellishment changed an accurate scientific finding into a false representation of the science.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/

I have to wonder if Mayor Hindman and the Columbia City Council would have voted to impose a smoking ban on the bars and restaurants of Columbia if groups like CASE had given them the straight story on secondhand smoke two years ago.

St. Charles Councilman Richard Veit defends "Cussing Ban" on Paul Harris Show

http://paulharrisonline.blogspot.com/
St. Charles City Councilman Richard Veit says he doesn't want to threaten bars, but just wants "the tools available to deal with the worst actors." Councilman Veit sounds reasonable, but I worry when a politician wants a new "tool" to control the behavior of adults on private property. When the Columbia City Council had just enacted a smoking ban, a Columbia alderman assured me that the ban wouldn't be a big problem for bars since it would be enforced on a "complaint basis". Now I read that 16 businesses have gone under in Columbia due to the smoking ban and the overall restaurant trade has shrunk five percent due to the ban. St. Charles bars had best fight like hell to hang on to their freedom.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Dec/20071229News003.asp http://research.stlouisfed.org/regecon/op/CRE8OP-2007-002.pdf

Martin Pion rejects American Cancer Society 16 Cigarette Claim

It is important to note that Martin Pion, President of Missouri GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution)INc., admitted in a letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this week that the American Cancer Society got the Illinois smoking ban passed based on a claim both he and the ACS knew was bogus. This should raise questions for everyone concerning the validity and authority of the new Illinois law.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/F6981807E5060211862573C2006FEC96?OpenDocument

Freezing Casino Queen smoker calls Mississippi River the new Berlin Wall

A shivering smoker, stuck smoking on the ill-heated concrete slab the Casino Queen now designates its "smoking lounge", told me that the Mississippi River has now become the new Berlin Wall. It didn't hit me until much later how right on this statement was. As regards public smoking, Missouri is still a free society based on the personal freedoms of citizens and the private property rights of business owners. Sadly, in regards to public smoking, Illinois has become a police state.