Opposition to proposed smoking ban in Cape Girardeau heats up

Cape Girardeau's smokers are fighting back.

A group of city residents -- and some outside the city's limits -- are organizing to oppose a proposed smoking ban in public places that will likely be decided by voters in April. They're meeting weekly, have launched a Facebook page to rally supporters and have designed a logo.

To them, the name they have chosen says it all: "Stand Up, Cape! What's Next?" They hope voters will stand up for the rights of business owners and smokers and ask if this right is taken away, which one is next to go?

"I know a lot of business owners downtown, and I think it's unfair to them," said John Pruitt, a group organizer and assistant professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

The group, made up of about 20 bar and restaurant owners and concerned citizens so far, is developing a campaign committee to convince voters that it's an unfair ban that tells business owners what they can do with their establishments. Unlike Breathe Easy of Cape Girardeau, the anti-smoking ban group says it's not a public health issue but a property rights issue, Pruitt said.

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have passed smoking bans that cover restaurants and bars. Four others ban smoking in restaurants but exempt stand-alone bars.

Pruitt and others believe such a ban would hurt businesses financially, which would trickle down to lost jobs and less taxes for city coffers.

"I think this ban would punch business owners in the stomach, especially in these bad economic times," Pruitt said.

Don't believe him? Pruitt said to look no farther than Columbia, Mo., where an ordinance took effect in January 2007, banning smoking in all bars, restaurants and workplaces.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis took a look at the effect in an article in its Regional Economic Development publication. The paper analyzed data for sales tax collections at eating and drinking establishments from January 2001 through December 2007, including the first 12 months of the smoking ban. The findings of the study suggest the smoking ban there has been associated with statistically significant losses in the sales tax revenue at Columbia's bars and restaurants, with an average decline of 3 percent to 4 percent. Some claim as many as 16 businesses have closed and blame the smoking ban.

Businesses that serve only food showed no significant effects of the ban, the study found, but those that serve food and alcohol or alcohol only show losses in the range of 6 percent to 11 percent.

"They cannot say this will not have an economic impact on Cape Girardeau," Pruitt said.

Karen Cain, who owns Port Cape Girardeau with her husband, Doc, is one of the leaders of the group. She said more than 20 people showed up for the meeting Wednesday and she expects more supporters as the election draws closer.

"Smokers are not second-class citizens," Cain said. "They're taxpayers and nurses, lawyers and professors who just happen to choose to smoke."

Besides, she said, business owners who pay property taxes and follow the law should not be told how to run their businesses, as long as they follow the law. Cain pointed out there are already many nonsmoking restaurants in Cape Girardeau.

"We've owned this for 22 years," she said. "We have separate areas for smokers and nonsmokers -- separate rooms. So I don't see the problem."

Cain knows many bar and restaurant owners that are against the ban. Many of them have committed to donating money to help the group get its message out to potential voters via television and newspaper advertisements, she said.

Members of the group are also suspicious about the dangers of secondhand smoke, saying the data is at best exaggerated. Breathe Easy Cape Girardeau has said the ban would protect workers who are subjected to secondhand smoke, but two employees at Port Cape said they didn't have a problem with it, including one who doesn't smoke.

Dave Nichols from Bell City, Mo., lives 40 miles away, but he works in Cape Girardeau and will try to help defeat the ban, even though he won't have a vote.

"Prohibitions never work," he said. "It's just a freedom that's lost, one more."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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