Saint Louis County about to waste $2 million of their $7.6 mil of a stimulus grant on smoking ban ads, plus four April 2011 ban referendums

As if Saint Louis County voters need any reminders that selfish smoking bans that only deprive privately owned businesses of their property rights are needed in both Saint Louis city and Saint Louis County from January 2nd and onward. I will not be surprised if many of the businesses that are covered by either the city or county ban after January 2nd quietly plan to thumb their nose at the law in some way, since both bans have crappy exemptions(Saint Louis city is worse, since it only exempts bars that have a floor space of 2000 sq. ft. or less, excluding kitchen areas), and that both should've had exemptions for businesses that are 18 and up at all times, and didn't allow minors inside at any time.

It's already looking like 4 Missouri communities, minimum(though not all confirmed yet), will have smoking bans on the April 5th ballot(Webb City, Cape Girardeau, O'Fallon, and Springfield). Only the first 3 have been confirmed to have enough signatures, and in Springfield, they still have to verify the signatures first. Joplin may or may not have a ban on the ballot in April, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Joplin antis collect the signatures in time before the April election.

I'd love it if all 4 communities could send a strong signal to state lawmakers that they do NOT want Missouri to enact an unnecessary, job-killing smoking ban in 2011. It's too bad those in Fulton who opposed a ban barely came up short in the final vote last month, since I recall it only passed by 6 percentage points there.

QUICK EDIT: Joplin's ban didn't go on the ballot, and Springfield, MO's ban will be going on the ballot in April. So that makes 4 smoking bans overall, which are as I said above, Webb City, Springfield, O'Fallon, and Cape Girardeau). I still will make a post on the November 2010 smoking ban referendums very soon, plus an Alaska community's smoking ban referendum defeat in late 2010 on a total ban I only heard about several months late.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_accf5ec9-8c19-592a-acd1-ae0a853c9059.html

http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x797276092/Webb-City-smoking-ban-heads-to-voters (Webb City)

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1688154.html (Cape Girardeau, and btw, I think the newly-formed coalition fighting this ban should just shorten their name to Stand Up Cape, or Speak Out Cape, similar to the past groups Speak Out Amarillo and Speak Out San Angelo)

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/stcharles/article_2b4ae648-06eb-11e0-8b17-0017a4a78c22.html (O'Fallon, MO, which is in Saint Charles County, MO and not covered by the Saint Louis County ban)

http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-story-smoking-ban-springfield-businesses-petition-12162010,0,5731564.story (Springfield, MO)

Webb City, MO(near Joplin) puts smoking ban referendum on April 2011 ballot

The more I think about it, it makes sense, considering they weren't enthused about touching this issue. But if it gives local businesses(both smoking ones, and non-smoking businesses that still favor freedom of choice) a great chance to successfully organize and fight this proposal before it's too late, more power to Webb City's council(and a la Devil Lake, ND's recent decision to refer a ban proposal to the ballot, instead of approving it).

More people need to organize against the Joplin-area group that's leading all these local smoking ban coalitions in each Joplin-area community, called Clean Air Project(it's an umbrella group that leads all the other local ones, like Smoke-Free Webb City). I'm slightly surprised Carthage wasn't the first community to refer it to the ballot, since that was the first community around there where their council had a hearing on this issue....

http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x797276092/Webb-City-smoking-ban-heads-to-voters