Cape Girardeau voters to decide smoking ban April 5

Voters will have the final say about whether a controversial smoking ban is enacted in Cape Girardeau.

As expected, the Cape Girardeau City Council voted unanimously at a special meeting Friday evening to put the hotly contested issue before voters April 5.

But its decision came with a twist: The vote came only after the council narrowly quashed a motion to postpone its decision for a week to see if a compromise between both sides could be brokered.

While the final vote was unanimous, council member Mark Lanzotti put that outcome in doubt for a few minutes while he discussed a proposal he decided to make after learning of another option early Friday. The vote to postpone was defeated on a split vote of 4-3.

Lanzotti said a third option would be to postpone a vote to put the issue on the ballot to see if opponents and proponents could agree to a compromise that would enact some of the ban, but not all of it. The proposed ordinance, which comes as the result of a petition initiative from residents, prohibits smoking in all enclosed public places including bars, restaurants and casinos.

The council's options, according to the charter's rules on initiative petitions, were to adopt the smoking ban ordinance as written or to send it to voters.

But Lanzotti said the charter would allow the council to adopt the ordinance outright and make changes after 60 days based on agreements between the pro-group Breathe Easy-Cape Girardeau and opponents, which include some restaurant and bar owners.

"I am asking for a delay to see if common ground could be reached," Lanzotti said. "I only do so after finding out the ordinance can be passed by council and amended later."

One such compromise could make an exemption for establishments that only let in people older than 21, Lanzotti said before the meeting. There could be others, he said, based on discussions between the two groups.

Dale Humphries, a member of Breathe Easy Cape Girardeau, the group that organized the petition drive to get the ban on the ballot, told the council her group wasn't comfortable committing to a discussion on compromise. No one from the opposition group attended the special meeting Friday.

"I don't know that we can talk about a compromise for the thousands of people who signed the petition," Humphries said.

In the end, the split vote on the delay was defeated and the council voted to send the issue to voters.

Council member Debra Tracy, who voted against the motion to postpone, said she thought the voters should decide on the ordinance that was proposed by citizens.

"It's the principle of the council deciding or letting voters decide," she said. "I think we should let the people decide."

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

701 Independence, Cape Girardeau, Mo.