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While checking for something else I came across an e-mail I’d sent in response to one on which I was copied by Bill Hannegan, of KEEP ST. LOUIS FREE! This is one for the record books and since the end of the year is a time to recap such absurdities, I’ve pasted it below.
Just for identification purposes where it’s not obvious:
Tony Palazzolo is a strong and vocal supporter of Bill Hannegan.
Michael Marth of Marth Bros., local supplier of “smoke-eater” units promoted by Bill Hannegan.
Diana Benanti of the Smoke-Free St. Louis City Coalition.
Mayor Linda Goldstein, City of Clayton
Councilwoman Barbara Fraser, St. Louis County Council
Ald. Lyda Krewson, City of St. Louis
E-m reply From: Martin Pion
Subject: Re: Smoke-Free St. Louis False Claim -> MoGASP begs to disagree
Date: July 7, 2010 9:03:32 PM CDT
To: Jeremy Richards
Cc: Bill Hannegan <keepst.louisfree@gmail.com, Tony Palazzolo, Smoke-Free St. Louis City Coalition , Diana Benanti, Michael Marth, Mayor Linda Goldstein, Barbara Fraser, Ald. Lyda Krewson
Dear Dr. Richards,
You copied me on your e-mail to Bill Hannegan so I’m taking the opportunity to respond.
I’m surprised and disappointed that someone with academic credentials would lower himself to making ad hominem attacks on those with whom he disagrees.
You also make this astonishing statement:
“Kinda like airplane air has more fungal growth now than it used to before smoking was banned on flights.”
The inference is that it was healthier on planes before they became smoke-free because the SHS was suppressing fungal growth (and coincidentally, sickening flight attendants). I don’t know what to say, except perhaps that you should suggest this as a research topic to the tobacco industry.
I don’t think the airline flight attendants on airplanes would agree with this remark either.
One flight attendant I know who never exposed herself to secondhand smoke except involuntarily at work, lost a lung to SHS. Her name is Norma Broin. She was the lead plaintiff in Norma R. Broin, Patricia Young, et al. v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, et al., the product liability lawsuit that resulted in a $300 million out-of-court settlement that established the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute (FAMRI), based in Miami, FL. FAMRI now funds a lot of research on the issue of SHS. 
Norma Broin and Patty Young were flight attendants in the successful and historic flight attendants' lawsuit Broin v. Philip Morris Inc.
Sincerely,
Martin Pion, B.Sc. (Physics & Math, London University, UK)
President, Missouri GASP
http://www.mogasp.wordpress.com
On Jul 7, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Jeremy Richards wrote:
Lackeys like Pion and the Big Pharma-backed, Smoke Free St. Louis Nanny Statist crowd will say and do anything to get their doomed, unenforceable, prohibitionist bans. No matter what they say, in the long run air in bars and restaurants will overall be dirtier than before as such establishments always cheap out on air filtration if they don’t have smoking customers. Kinda like airplane air has more fungal growth now than it used to before smoking was banned on flights. The air filtration technology that Bill promotes would be fine to clean the air and end the problem. Of course the Big Pharma, Carrie Nation-esque prohibitionists will never agree. You can’t appease a radical.
Jeremy Richards, Ph.D.
Southeast Regional Director
and
Director of Historical Research
Citizens Freedom Alliance
Associate Professor of History
Gordon College
History of smoking ban disasters:
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/23460/History_Shows_Smoking_Bans_Likely_to_Be_Repealed.html
Missouri Group Against Smoking Pollution 
I certainly hope that Norma Broin can prove beyond a doubt that she lost a lung to SHS. I would like to see documented proof of that. Is there any? Of course not. There has never been any document of the sort. In fact, any claims made for worker’s compensation have been thrown out because it can’t be proven. The World Health Organization’s study showing that SHS may even have a protective effect and not the least harmful was withheld because it didn’t promote total control of the population. Need proof? http://web.archive.org/web/20021128202555/http:/www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/03/08/wtob08.html
It seems the CDC have hoodwinked officials that they are the foremost authority on this. The CATO Institute (The Second-Hand Smoke Charade http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php…) and Sloan Kettering (http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/12463.cfm) contradict the anti-smokers propoganda, alot!
It would seem this SHS issue is rather a non-issue.
[mogasp: edited down from 1,898 to 978 characters, but in future long submissions may simply be disallowed.]
Marbee, You clearly wouldn’t care even if Norma Broin could produce evidence linking her lung cancer to her on-the-job exposure to SHS. You make that clear by answering your own demand for proof:
“Is there any? Of course not.”
Mogasp, you say Prof. Richards inferred “that it was healthier on planes before they became smoke-free because the SHS was suppressing fungal growth”
I believe you are incorrect. The inference was that the air was healthier, but not that SHS was suppressing fungal growth. The reduced fungal colony concentrations and probably reduced concentrations of deadly and sickening airborne viruses were likely due to the increased levels of ventilation deemed necessary in the 1980s to deal with ETS.
You also mention this should be a tobacco industry research topic. If you consult your copy of Brains, page 140, you’ll find the research was already done, and done by the US Dept of Transportation in 1989. You’ll also found that the DOT estimated that the inconsequential risks from cosmic radiation we are ALL exposed to when flying werea thousand times greater than the risks from secondhand smoke exposure.
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
mogasp: word count = 997
Michael, IF ventilation rates have been reduced since flights became smoke-free and this has led to provable problems of fungal growth there is nothing to stop airlines reversing that step. But where’s the proof that the two are connected, if it is even documented?
The Secretary of Transportation at the time was Elizabeth Dole, a tobacco lobby ally. She was unwilling to act on this issue, as I recall, and stonewalled. Please provide a reliable reference for the cosmic radiation risk vs SHS.
MoGASP, I don’t have the study at hand, but I *did* look at it when researching Brains and it seemed reliable. Have you examined it and found any difficulty with it? I wouldn’t normally think of the U.S. Department of Transportation as being an organization that would alter or slant its research findings at the behest of Big Tobacco or Big Pharma or anyone… they have no dependence on any support from such groups (although the old American Smokers Alliance in the 1990s had funding from BT and I think I’ve heard of a few antismoking groups that have had funding from BP.) If a D.O.T. study is to be dismissed because Elizabeth Dole was a tobacco lobby “ally” then we’d have to dismiss the Surgeon Generals Report because Regina Benjamin is an “antismoking lobby ally.” Heehee…. I’ll show ya mine if you show me yours on that one!
:>
Michael
There is actually reasonable substance to the idea that the air can be safer with ETS as a component. The physical dimensions of tobacco smoke particulate [fine particulate region; 1-2.5 microns] combined with its surface characteristics [sticky] make for a very effective trap for biological matter and sub micron carbon particulate.
If you understand how much you actually inhale of what is contained in a room you quickly see how your risks when someone coughs or sneezes, can be and is reduced with smoke in the room, compared to your chances in a smoke free environment.
When you have an infectious disease you go to a hospital to be treated increasing the risks to others. We already see a distinct rise in hospital viral outbreaks, which I would expect will continue to occur until the point that Doctors find a substitute and stop telling us the best deterrent for an airborne virus is to wash your hands. Clearly viral infections such as the flu are not spread by hand contact but through inhalation in infected air spaces.
[Original edited down to 1,033 characters by mogasp.]
mogasp: Kevin’s argument seems to be that smoking in hospitals, for example, would be beneficial for patients and staff because tobacco smoke would help to trap other potentially dangerous airborne contaminants. I’m surprised the tobacco industry hasn’t suggested this yet as a way to promote smoking. They did once employ doctors to peddle their products so why not again?
I do not support smoking or the tobacco industry by my comments. I only support inclusive attitudes and the fundamentals of Liberal empiricism. As described by Mills and Locke, of which few in a civilized society should find reason to deny. Assuming “civilized” or the respect of “free agency” and “autonomy”, still caries a positive connotation among the Tobacco Control criminal element and the rest who follow their hollowed low road cynic-isms.
I know it is the season of goodwill, but the paper “Mortality from Cancer and Other Causes among Airline Cabin Attendants in Germany, 1960–1997″ shows no raised risk of lung cancer. Not only among the groups was there a 29% reduction in all cancers (0.71 OR), the study says on lung cancer and passive smoking:
“We found a rather remarkably low standardized mortality ratios (SMR) for lung cancer among female cabin attendants and no increase for male cabin attendants, indicating that smoking and exposure to passive smoking may not play an important role in mortality in this group. Smoking during airplane flights was permitted in Germany until the mid-1990s, and smoking is still not banned on all charter flights.”
“The cohort included 16,014 women and 4,537 men (approximately 250,000 person-years of follow-up).”
So in conclusion more evidence that passive smoking and its supposed harm is at best an urban myth and at worst junk science peddled for political and funding purposes.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/156/6/556.full
[Edited down to 1,037 characters by mogasp. Note that the study found no elevated lung cancer risk among either smokers or nonsmokers. ]
The study referenced by Dave Atherton contains the following:
“Our cohort was rather young: 81 percent of person-years among women and 73 percent among men were accumulated in the age groups below 41 years. …. The mean duration of follow-up was 11.8 years among women and 13.4 years among men.”
Lung cancer symptoms or death from that cause may simply not have occurred during the study period.
Flight crews were healthier than the average of the whole population. This is further proof that the ventilation systems in aircraft were sufficient to deal with the alleged risks of secondhand smoke exposure. Also I recall an article published in the early 1990’s in Consumer Research magazine which found cabin air was less healthy after airline bans took effect. Dave Kuneman
Please visit: a study of 58,000 flight attendants. http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/PDF/58000flightattendants.pdf
BTW, it’s not just fungal growth, it’s also about, if the passenger next to you has an airborne illnesss, it’s more likely you will catch it with the ventilation system turned down.
I am a strong supporter of Bill Hannegan, and any other scientist, mathemetician, business owner, doctor, (and there are many of them) or representative who bothers to do the reading, and figures out very quickly that the smoking ban agenda is hyped, and the purpose of the bans are to ostracize American citizens, and force them to stand outside, when the OWNER of the business says that these people are welcome. I find it cowardly that business owners are fined rather than smokers. Seems that Health Department people are too afraid to walk up to a smoker, but they want female bar owners to confront them. (Perhaps MoGASP will volunteer to do this for us?)
Bill Hannegan is not a scientist, as you imply. SHS is, at the very least, a major public nuisance, and can seriously affect smoke-sensitive individuals with respiratory diseases. The purpose of smoke-free air laws is to protect non-smokers, NOT to penalize smokers. Smokers aren’t FORCED to smoke outside: most do so to satisfy their craving for nicotine. They could get that by other means, such as nicotine gum. Or they could just do without.
Mogasp wrote, “Smokers aren’t FORCED to smoke outside: most do so to satisfy their craving for nicotine. They could get that by other means, such as nicotine gum. Or they could just do without.”
Mostly quite true Mogasp, except that the fact that most of them are NOT happy with simply going outside or chewing gum points up the fact that the driving force is not, as Antismokers generally like to claim, an “addiction,” but rather an enjoyment that goes along with their drinking and social experience. It is an enjoyment, an addition to the pleasure of their lives, that is consequential enough to them that many of them cease going to bars or restaurants after bans because part of the positive experience that brought them there in the past has been removed. They end up staying at home just about as much as the nonsmoking population — which is what destroys the lives and livelihoods those owning and working in drink-oriented establishments.
– MJM
Michael, You wrote:
“the driving force is not, as Antismokers generally like to claim, an “addiction,” but rather an enjoyment that goes along with their drinking and social experience….”
Are you denying the reality that nicotine is highly addictive and is what keeps most smokers smoking? That is certainly contrary to the science. It’s a fiction to suggest it’s merely an enjoyable habit.
Ref: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction: A Report of the Surgeon General 1988
I do not see any implication in Sheila’s comment that Bill is a scientist as mogasp infers. That said, a nuisance is no excuse for the taking of property rights. One of the 5 main things the Constitution guarantees is that this nation protect property rights (from smoking bans) and earnings (taken for tobacco control), yet this uneducated government and today’s activists would take away the rights of tobacco companies and privately owned businesses. It seems that tobacco control believes that they are in charge of the Constitution these days. We The People did NOT give tobacco control this power, and it’s time to take it away from them!
Marbee, The “property rights” issue is a smoke-screen, pure and simple. If it had any substance then private property owners who invite in the public to conduct commerce would be exempt from any and all government regulation. They could operate as a fiefdom.
Ohio Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge David Cain’s ruling:
The Court is aware of what the Department of Health will argue. It will argue that parties like the Defendants are subject to numerous regulations, such as food and alcohol regulations, which they need to follow in order to operate. It would argue the SmokeFree Act is no different. Contrary to the Dept. of Health’s belief, the SmokeFree Act is very different. Property owners can determine who they give alcohol to on their premises; they can control how food is prepared. Property owners, however, have no control over whether someone rips out a cigarette and lights up. http://opponentsofohiobans.com/Documents/Zeno%27s%20-%20Trial%20Court%20Decision.pdf
Notice he said “property owners”. WE own these properties. If our properties are “public”, then the “public” should pay bar owners for our losses. And we’ve lost a LOT. It’s time these groups and our government got out of the business of demonizing our behaviors.
BTW, non-smokers aren’t FORCED to enter anyone’s privately owned premises any more than smokers are forced to enter anyone’s CHOICE of a smoke-free environment. Vegetarians don’t go to eat at a steakhouse if that’s all they serve up!
Mogasp, have you read ANYTHING about the extreme danger of nicotine gum and patches? They have horrendous side effects after a very short time of use. The same can’t be said for smoking. ALL of the world’s oldest people are, or were, smokers. There’s not a non-smoker in the bunch! After all, tobacco is a nightshade plant which includes MANY foods that people eat every day in the form of broccoli, eggplant, and tomatoes. It was only a matter of time that ‘pharma’ rears their ugly head with medicines made from the tobacco plant.
[mogasp character count, for ref. = 765]
Marbee, You don’t distinguish between inhaling tobacco smoke directly (or indirectly as SHS), and ingesting it in food. That’s patently absurd.
The full Dept of Transp. (DOT) report referred to above is here: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qwr31d00/pdf
And it says exactly what the poster said it said. And more. Quite illuminating.
Check out, too, the FAA Bulletin, ” Radiation Exposure of Air Carrier Crew Members,” AC # 120-52, Mar. 4. 1990, which documents the high rate of cancer caused by galactic radiation.
If you don’t want to read 100’s of pages, here’s a short, fine, documented summary of DOT and FAA, along with verbatim excerpts from the Consumer Reports article (“Breathing on a Jet Plane,” Aug. 1994) which is also mentioned above:
“Up in Smoke: The US Government’s Definitive Report About Smoking on Aiplanes,”
http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/lin-air.htm
Walt, your links above prompted a search which led to the following document:
Airliner Cabin Environment Contaminant Measurements, Health Risks, and Mitigation Options
Date: Dec 1989
Length: 320 pages
TIMN0027582-TIMN0027901
Following is a relevant excerpt (with spelling errors corrected):
“The Committee recommended that smoking be banned on all commercial flights to lessen irritation and discomfort and to reduce potential health hazards associated with ETS by bringing that aspect of cabin air quality into line with established standards for other closed environ- ments. The smoking ban was also cited as a means to eliminate the possi- bility of fires caused by cigarettes. There has been a growing concern that exposure to ETS may be associated with adverse health and comfort effects among nonsmokers. This concern is further enhanced by the growing interest in indoor air quality, the recognition that ETS is a major indoor contaminant source, and the fact that a large number of people are exposed to ETS. The health and comfort effects of involuntary smoking have been extensively reviewed by the Committee on Passive Smoking of the National Research Council (NRC 1986b) and by the U.S. Surgeon General (DHHS 1986).”
Mogasp; You can not approve my lengthy 1084 character response, yet your own post is 1038? Fair is fair….or not?
Not to worry though, if anyone wishes to read my response they can do so at Dr. Michael Siegal’s blog. He isn’t insulted by free speech in reasonable dosages and he is slapped around rigorously, on the best of days.
Hoping the length and content is in line with your exacting [abet selective] standards. The above mentioned comment can be found in it’s entirety here;
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/
[mogasp: What I asked you to reduce was a 1,322 character submission, not even close to 1,000.]
P.S. Dave K’s points are important and accurate, Dave A’s cite and Mogasp’s note about LC rates in the airline study’s smokers are notable as well, Kevin’s point about hospital infections certainly has some real validity despite Mogasp’s dismissal of it, and Sheila’s point about enforcement is 100% on the money.
DoH officers have been known to protest, “What do you want US to do? WE’RE not the police!” while fining barworkers; Mayor Bloomy, when confronted while partying at an event where “important” people were smoking, said “What do you want me to do? Call the police?” (Note Bloomy IS “chief executive” of the enforcement branch of NY’s gvt.); and Irish (Scottish?) DoH people agreed to give tickets to mass transit riders ONLY if they were assigned in pairs AND accompanied by a minimum of two uniformed officers!
Mogasp, will bar personnel be required to act as unpaid, uninsured, and untrained law-enforcement personel required to use physical force to enforce the new STL laws?
– MJM
Mr Pion,
Mr Kuneman provided the study on Ionizing radiation. The airlines did in fact cut way back on the amount of fresh air as a result of the smoking ban.
http://www.flyana.com/air.html as a cost saving measure. You ask for studies that prove that it is not ETS but radiation that caused cancer. We could ask the same. The vast majority of the real studies on ETS the RRs were insignificant. The only way the anti smokers could distort it to make it significant is to use the questionable methodology of Meta-analysis. Even your highly praised Surgeon Generals report admits this on pqge 21.
MoGASP,
Mr Kuneman provided the study on Ionizing radiation. The airlines did in fact cut way back on the amount of fresh air as a result of the smoking ban.
http://www.flyana.com/air.html as a cost saving measure. You ask for studies that prove that it is not ETS but radiation that caused cancer. We could ask the same. The vast majority of the real studies on ETS the RRs were insignificant. The only way the anti smokers could distort it to make it significant is to use the questionable methodology of Meta-analysis. Even your highly praised Surgeon Generals report admits this on pqge 21.
Marshall P. Keith
Pion, as you have nothing worthwhile to do this Christmas season but besmirch my good name I guess I have no other choice but to reply to your misleading post. Let’s cut to the chase. You know, or should know, that what I meant by my email back in JULY was that the airlines cheaped out and reduced ventilation after smoking was banned on flights in the U.S. As a result there is more fungal problems on board airplanes than there used to be. If you notice, the sentence in my email before my comment about airlines is this: “No matter what they say, in the long run air in bars and restaurants will overall be dirtier than before as such establishments always cheap out on air filtration if they don’t have smoking customers.” I find it interesting that you don’t attack me for calling you a lackey. I also find it fascinating that the people who have replied to your juvenile posting about me have pretty much all been on my side of this issue (which I am glad to see). Frankly, this makes me wonder how popular you are amongst your fellow prohibitionist fanatics. Pion, face the facts, the present belongs to you and your radical ilk, but the future, as evidenced by all the ignored and failing smoking bans worldwide, belongs to my side.
[mogasp: Even though this exceeds the 1,000 character limit it’s being allowed since it is from the subject of this blog.]
The claim that the 1989 document was a tobacco lobby production is ridiculous as shown by the quote ending in: “bringing that aspect of cabin air quality into line with established standards for other closed environments”
Remember: this was 1989: 6 YEARS before even California’s restaurant ban; 9 years before their bar ban. To claim “established standards” necessitated a ban was ridiculously antismoking in 1989. After reading that selection, I’d expect a slant AGAINST smoking rather than toward it.
Re addiction vs. enjoyment: Smoking is both, & part of the enjoyment, but only part, comes from satisfying the addiction — in much the same way that the smell of the turkey cooking drives you wild on Thanksgiving and your craving for it is fulfilled when, hungry, you finally get to sit down and eat it! The hunger isn’t necessary for the enjoyment, but DOES increase it. And the enjoyment’d be less if you were forced to stand out in the cold & rain every hour or so to eat a portion.
-MJM
[mogasp: 991 characters. Close, but no cigar!]
”Smokers aren’t FORCED to smoke outside: most do so to satisfy their craving for nicotine.”
If the craving was for nicotine alone, NRT would be doing the job. It’s not! As long as the ”nicotine addiction” fraud is perpetuated there will be no scientific advancements to discover what makes smoking so desirable & to attempt to find a healthier replacement. Oh wait, there is a healthier option: the e-cigarette which anti-smokers condemn because it looks like smoking & it competes with Big Pharma NRT! U’d think that anti-smokers who tell us that smoking bans are all about non-smokers wud be happy with the e-ciggy which neither annoys nor harms non-smokers? Theyre not! Proof positive that smoking bans have nothing to do with non-smokers & everything to do with forcing smokers to quit…even products that only resemble smoking!
”The big fraud was the 1988 Surgeon General Report entitled “Nicotine Addiction’’ Read Pr R Molimard’s expert opinion on nicotine addiction at: http://cagecanada.blogspot.com/2010/12/beliefs-manipulation-and-lies-in.html
[mogasp: Thanks for reducing to 988 characters from the original 1455.]
Mogasp–
Since I doubt you read all 320 pages in the last hour, I suggest you read the summary at forces (“Up in the smoke”) that was linked to above where you’ll see that the (pre-determined) Conclusions was not supported by the facts that DOT itself uncovered. The summary reproduces tables and many verbatims from the DOT report. You will see exactly what they measured in the cabins of the smoking as opposed to the smoker-free planes. You will see what Consumer Reports measured on the planes several years after all smoking had been banned. You will also see DOT’s estimated risk for passengers and crew from ETS vs radiation. These were the facts you were ostensibly disputing.
Finally, a little more research will turn up the fact that airplanes constructed after the ban are incapable of intaking air from outside, aka “fresh air,” (which was an expense to the airline) and can only recirculate the filtered cabin air.
[mogasp word count = 924]
Walt Cody’s statement that airplanes constructed after airplanes became smoke-free is apparently erroneous, casting doubt on his other contentions. Check out the following:
Susan Catto in the New York Times wrote on January 22, 2006 the following:
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/travel/08qna.html
The Federal Aviation Administration regulations (found at http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/faa_regulations, No. 25.831) state that an airliner’s ventilation system must be designed to provide each occupant with at least 0.55 pounds of fresh air per minute. That translates to about 10 cubic feet of air a minute. On a typical passenger jet, the ratio of fresh to recycled air is about 50-50.
While a comparison of the ratios on different airlines is not available, some airlines do discuss air quality on their Web sites. Swiss International Airlines, for example, claims a 60-to-40 ratio of fresh to recycled air, while British Airways says the total air volume on its planes is exchanged every two to three minutes, far more frequently than in a typical air-conditioned building.
Regulations are clearly in place that require fresh air (from outside the airplane) to be brought in. Additionally, that air coming out of the nozzle above you has gone through a HEPA filter, which is designed to remove germs, contaminants, etc.
A P.P.S. to my earlier P.S. :> I really would be interested in knowing the answer to my query, “Mogasp, will bar personnel be required to act as unpaid, uninsured, and untrained law-enforcement personel required to use physical force to enforce the new STL laws?”
If they are NOT required to do such, then what does the actual wording of the law require them to do?
😕
MJM
Michael, The ordinance contains standard language, as appended below. As you’re surely aware, even in Missouri, a state with a relatively high smoking rate, it doesn’t exceed 25% of the adult population. That means that 75% automatically obey the law. Of the remainder, most smokers are courteous and law-abiding, so only a small minority are expected to be scofflaws. That is a far higher adherence to the law than, say, motorists who routinely break speed limits on public roads.
Ref: http://www.stlouisco.com/doh/IndoorCleanAirCode/Chapter_605_INDOOR_CLEAN_AIR_CODE.html
605.080 Enforcement. —
1. This chapter shall be enforced by the St. Louis County Department of Health and by any authorized designee of the Director of the Department of Health
(O. No. 24105, 8-25-09)
605.090 Penalties. —
1. Every person who shall be convicted of a violation of Section 605.040 or 605.055 shall be fined not more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for each offense.
2. A person who owns, manages, operates, or otherwise controls a public place or place of employment and who shall be convicted of a violation of Section 605.050 shall be fined as follows:
a. A fine not exceeding one hundred dollars ($100.00) for a first violation,
b. A fine not exceeding two hundred dollars ($200.00) for a second violation within one (1) year.
c. A fine not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500.00) for each additional violation within one (1) year.
3. Each day on which a violation of this chapter occurs shall be considered a separate and distinct violation.
(O. No. 24105, 8-25-09)
What would the anti-smoker lobby tell these people who were obviously harmed after smoking bans were implemented and just how many were made sick by the same cause, before the smoking bans on airliners, with only one possible prognosis, which appears to be misguided in the longer term? Cigarette smoke in the cabin may well have provided a protective masking effect reducing their risks, as discussed previously.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7993889/Toxic-cabin-air-legal-victory-for-sick-flight-attendant.html#disqus_thread
“Toxic’ cabin air: legal victory for sick flight attendant A woman who fell ill as a result of breathing “toxic” air on an aircraft has been awarded damages by the Australian High Court.”
[mogasp: Please correct your terminology if you’re including mogasp, which is FOR smoke-free air and NOT anti-smoker per se. That’s an important distinction.]
All the bickering aside, the most foolish comment was the one which suggested that smokers indulge in their habit for pleasure rather than addiction. What planet is this person from? I have watched colleagues eyeing the clock waiting for a class to end so they could get a nico fix. My own daughter, struggled mightily to end her smoking problem and finally succeeded after a valient struggle with numerous failures along the path to freedom from tobacco.
Hans
MJM has it correct, I quit for three years after a one month bet after one of the price hikes. I always enjoyed smoking and eventually started again. I have no doubt that smoking is addictive, like caffeine, sugar & even sex. The largest success rate for quitting is still cold turkey in spite of what the drug companies (WHO PROMOTE THE BAN) say. The bottom line is it’s hard to give up something you enjoy, the success rate depends more on if you really want it, Some of it is habbit you reach for one as a reflex action without thinking about it. Now I roll my own, part to beat the draconian SCHIP tax that was unfairly put on the backs of smokers, partially because now I only smoke when I want one. The satisfaction is in the smoking or gum or ecigarettes would make a good substitution. This is why the ban hurts bars, smoking and drinking are social function, I go to bars to socialize and if I am not allowed to do all three I will take my non-smoking friends with me to a private party.
[mogasp: 1000 characters after editing.]
Mr. Pion, only 25 percent of the population smokes, yet the smoking rate at some bars exceeds 75 percent. Those bars are the places that will likely ignore the law.
Mr. Hannegan, When I visited the DD Karaoke Lounge (primarily a bar), to do air quality testing one busy night I expected to see a lot of smoking. I did not. That suggests to me these figures are being deliberately exaggerated.
Thank you for your response Mogasp! 🙂 You wrote
“The ordinance contains standard language, as appended below. …
This chapter shall be enforced by the St. Louis County Department of Health and by any authorized designee of the Director of the Department of Health”
I’m assuming you answered my question with the complete section of the law about enforcement, so it’s pretty clear then that the bar/restaurant/office management and workers have no enforcement responsibilities themselves. Basically the same as the laws in Michigan and South Dakota where they have to post signs, remind smokers of the law, and then just proceed with business as usual.
– MJM
Thank you for your helpful response Mogasp! May I ask that the needed quote from the law NOT count toward the 1k limit though?. Thank you!
==
Responsibilities of proprietors, owners and managers. 1. It shall be unlawful for any person having control of a place listed in this chapter knowingly to permit, cause, suffer or allow any person to violate the provisions of this chapter. It shall be an affirmative defense to an alleged violation of this subsection that the person having control of a place has asked that the (tobacco product) be extinguished and asked the person to leave the establishment if that person (refuses).
==
The law does NOT require bartenders to physically force smokers to stop, nor bodily throw them out. Regular bar patrons have all seen times where barkeeps simply ignore a patron’s refusal to behave about something and even continue service rather than produce a larger problem.
The law also, wisely, does not open STL to fire liabilities by requiring the removal of fire-safety equipment (ashtrays — obviously necessary for either defiant or accidentally noncompliant smokers.)
– MJM
Michael, Thanks for looking into this further and digging out this additional information. I was going to make inquiries if you hadn’t. Personally, I believe ashtrays should be removed because if not their presence is usually taken as a cue that smoking is allowed. I’ve witnessed smokers standing under “No Smoking” signs in stores and smoking because an ashtray was left nearby.
Mogasp wrote, “Please correct your terminology if you’re including mogasp, which is FOR smoke-free air and NOT anti-smoker per se. That’s an important distinction”
Mogasp, the fault grew from the other foot. In the 80s Antismokers began insisting on ID’ing themselves as simply being, & speaking for, “all nonsmokers.” Such was not the case but they refused to correct it. So, in order to avoid having folks on free-choice side simply square off against all nonsmokers as the Antis intended, I’ve always emphasized that indeed there was a distinct subgroup: the Antismokers. Yes, you could argue a linguistic nicety and say “We may be antismokING but not antismokER.” but on the other hand very few on your side of the aisle would agree to drop “healthy” before “smokefree air” (even though the two are clearly not necessarily connected) or change numerous other linguistically pejorative terminologies aimed at smokers. The generalized “Antismoker” term is simply sauce for the gander here.
– MJM
[mogasp: There are certainly those who equate antismoking with antismoker, rather like drunken driving with drunker driver. But your use of the term “Antismoker” seems deliberately designed to pit smoker against nonsmoker. Isn’t that true?]
“As you’re surely aware, even in Missouri, a state with a relatively high smoking rate, it doesn’t exceed 25% of the adult population.That means that 75% automatically obey the law”
That’s quite true. It’s also true that 99.9% of Kansans obey laws against dumping waste at sea. And yes, most smokers are courteous, and many are law-abiding even when the law is a bad law: law-abidingness was a good bit of what allowed Jim Crow laws to long flourish even though most Southerners may not have approved of them.
The bans may not be as egregious as those laws, but they have paved the way for bans in private apartments, the removal of children from parents in custody disputes, the closing of thousands of businesses (many of which had operated successfully for decades prior to the ban), the dissolution of marriages (no docs, but you know it’s true), suicides & murders among both adults and children, family disruption and divorces due to unemployment, and many many other very bad things.
– MJM
[mogasp: Michael, the Kansas argument about dumping waste at sea seems entirely irrelevant. But in any case, we’ll see what happens in metro St. Louis. Enforcement will certainly be one issue of interest and concern.]
mogasp, one bar does not tell the whole story, especially a karaoke bar. We lost 2 bar/restaurants this month in a town of 11,000 to the smoking ban now that it’s cold outside. So to forcibly allow anti-smokers their preference of smoke free, these 2 owners lose everything they’ve worked for for many years! One had been open since before the days of Dillinger. Dillinger WENT there! It’s on a back road next to another tavern that will also lose business without the restaurant next door. So now, NO ONE can go there, including the anti-smokers. They could have just gone somewhere else and let the smoker’s keep the place going, because the non-smokers surely did not. So what did the smoking ban accomplish?
MoGASP, the DD Lounge reports a 30 percent smoking rate. Other bars report a much higher rate.
[mogasp: That’s good to know, if true. It means bars with higher smoking rates would have even worse air quality due to secondhand smoke than the DD Lounge with its 5 ceiling mounted smoke-eaters.]
mogasp, that is true. And I would not have hidden that fact from you if we had continued working together on the DD air quality study.
Mogasp wrote, “But your use of the term “Antismoker” seems deliberately designed to pit smoker against nonsmoker. Isn’t that true?”
Actually NO!!! It’s the opposite! The Antismokers of the 70s/80s tried to do that. What I try to do is make it very clear that most nonsmokers are really not into the fight at all. They believe (correctly in my view and in that of the antismoking Dr. Doll) that normal exposures to secondary smoke are inconsequential for concern on an individual level. But the true “Antismokers” promulgate the idea that not only do they represent all those innocent nonsmokers, but that even small levels of exposure in well-ventilated areas represent a threat to life that is serious enough that the average nonsmoker should be seriously concerned.
I do not believe that, and I think I have argued well, based upon scientific findings, that it is not so.
– Michael
Michael, You are being too dismissive of the risks associated with secondhand smoke exposure, even in supposedly well-ventilated environments. mogasp has conducted enough tests, and had enough additional independent tests performed, to be convinced on that score. Publication of results in a peer-reviewed journal will hopefully validate those conclusions.
mogasp, you wrote “There are certainly those who equate antismoking with antismoker, rather like drunken driving with drunker driver. But your use of the term “Antismoker” seems deliberately designed to pit smoker against nonsmoker. Isn’t that true?”
I disagree, it is a distinction between a non-smoker who doesn’t care one way or another about the ban and those who wish to force everyone to cater to them. One of my best friends owns a bar and as Mr Hannegan points out, you will find a higher percentage of smokers in a bar then you will in the general population. I know some tha only smoke when they drink.
Marshall P. Keith
Mogasp, I think we’ll continue to disagree on whether the “risks” we see are significant or not. I will enjoy seeing your study, but I’m guessing you have studied nothing beyond FPM or nicotine levels, and for various reasons I’ll expand when your results are ready, neither of those is a very reliable indicator of risk at the sort of levels you’ll likely have found. Still, we’ll see.
– Michael
mogasp, don’t you think it a bit strange that casino’s would be exempted, or that applications for exemptions are taken? Is the air any different in a casino than a decently ventilated place? That if it is so dangerous, why sell a license to allow a legal products consumption? Can you really not see that it has always been about the money to be made off the smoker or those who cater to smokers? Do you not think it’s strange that studies done that show danger from SHS are not published and hidden, yet those where the results are paid for before the study is done are the ones used in enacting bans? It all seems very elementary to me and frankly, I’m very surprised you don’t see it!
You said
“Michael, You are being too dismissive of the risks associated with secondhand smoke exposure, even in supposedly well-ventilated environments. mogasp has conducted enough tests, and had enough additional independent tests performed, to be convinced on that score. Publication of results in a peer-reviewed journal will hopefully validate those conclusions.”
Again dose makes the poison! Just showing that nicotine is in the air does not prove a health risk. How much arsenic is in your drinking water? So unless your study can clearly show levels compared to a dose response curve the study means absolutely nothing.
Marshall P Keith
Mogasp–
Thanks for the e, but my (deleted from here) question stands. I saw your earlier post, quoting a conclusion of the 320 page DOT Report whose entirety (and I don’t fault you for this) you clearly didn’t read. However, I asked if you’d read the forces summary, which reproduces DOT tables and quotes it (and the FAA and Consumer Reports) verbatim about both the DOT and CR measurements of on board AQ and the heightened risks from galactic radiation.. If you had read it you would see that your doubts would be resolved and in favor of your antagonists (in the literary sense) here. It was the forces summary that I wished you would read and comment on. (And of course, if you doubt it, you can always go back and seriously read the whole DOT Report. I have. And the forces report is accurate. And CR confirms that the air is worse now. )
It would be easier to take your arguments seriously if you’d argue from the facts.