Fired up: Group works to get smoking ban on April ballot

Over a patty melt and onion rings, 61-year-old Larry Hale took a deep draw on his off-brand cigarette -- just as he's done for more than five decades -- and almost snarled.

"It's our right," he said, after he polished off his lunch Tuesday at Patty Lou's Cafe in Cape Girardeau. "We have the right just like they have the right not to."

Come April, Hale and other smokers may no longer be able to light up in any Cape Girardeau business -- including restaurants and bars.

In what already looks to be a divisive move that some business owners say would hit them in their wallets, a group called Cape Girardeau Breathe Easy is poised to present a petition asking city voters if smokers should be forced to step outside before getting their nicotine fix.

The group is nearing its 3,000-signature goal to take to the Cape Girardeau City Council next week, most of which they gathered outside polls Nov. 2. If a required 2,441 of those signatures are valid, the council will have 60 days to consider enacting the ordinance outright.

If the council doesn't take action, the issue would be put to the voters, likely in April.

Dale Humphries, a member of Breathe Easy, said the main reason the group is gathering signatures is because the ordinance it has drafted would make businesses healthier for patrons and workers alike. Secondhand smoke is also a serious danger that non-smokers should not be subjected to, she said.

"I think everybody has the right to do the things they want to do," Humphries said. "But their rights end where mine begin and that's when we're in the same place at the same time and I have to breathe their smoke."

The ordinance would prohibit smoking in enclosed public places, including bars, restaurants, bingo halls, convention facilities, casinos and other retail shops. Violations would be punishable by $50 fines for customers, and business owners who fail to comply would be hit with $500 fines. Repeat offenders could lose their business license under the proposal.

At least two city council members said they weren't in favor of passing the ban at the council level.

"I would vote no," said Mayor Harry Rediger. "I just think we need to leave some decisions up to the individual business owners. I'm just not ready at this point to force businesses to move to nonsmoking."

Council member Meg Davis Proffer agreed with the mayor.

"I don't tell people not to go to McDonalds and eat 12 cheeseburgers," she said. "It's really not about smoking. It's a person's right to do that."

And yet the practice of banning smoking in public places is becoming more common across Missouri and the country, including statewide bans in 27 states. Columbia, Mo., enacted a similar ordinance a few years ago. On Nov. 2, when Cape Girardeau voters passed the casino measure, two central Missouri communities, Fulton and Jefferson City, passed bans on smoking in public places as well.

Missouri is considered one of the most tobacco-friendly places in the nation, according to a June study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that ranked states on their tobacco control efforts. According to that study, Missouri workers are more likely to be exposed to tobacco smoke than any workers outside Nevada.

More than 29 percent of Missouri residents smoke, including 19 percent in Cape Girardeau County, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

The problem is real, said Leah Wiggs, Breathe Easy's co-chairwoman. She points to statistics provided by the Surgeon General's office that say secondhand smoke contains at least 250 chemicals known to be toxic, including more than 50 that cause cancer. Secondhand smoke exposure causes heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults, she said. Some studies suggest 1,200 people die each year in Missouri from secondhand smoke.

"It's not just about the customers," she said. "The people who work in these places are being forced to be around secondhand smoke, too. We really don't see it as a rights issue. We're not against people smoking, just smoking where others have to breathe it."

It's an issue of neither, though, to Patty Lou Mungle, who owns Patty Lou's Cafe on Morgan Oak Street, that allows smoking.

"It's not right for us restaurant owners," said Mungle, who is herself a smoker. "It would hurt us if smokers stopped coming. We have plenty of restaurants that don't allow smoking already. For us, it would mean 25 percent of our business or more. I wonder if they've thought about that."

As for Hale, who lit another one before paying his bill at Patty Lou's, he says he's going to continue his 2-1/2-pack-a-day habit regardless of what voters say.

"I've been smoking since I was 7," he said, which drew a chuckle from the other smokers at his table. "We're all going to die someday, whether we smoke or not."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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