St. Louis County bowling centers may be smoked out

Tuesday August 4th, St. Louis County bowling centers may be smoked out if they don't fight back.

A bill has been introduced by County Councilwoman Barbara Fraser to ban smoking in public areas to put on the November ballot a referendum for voters to decide. A hearing and vote are scheduled.

Read the story here.

As someone who covered government as a news reporter for nearly 30 years, most voter referendum issues were passed. I always believed personally it was a good thing to let people have their say on a matter.

But not this time.

My argument is simple: Any business already can choose to be smoke free, so why do we need a law? Some choose to be smoke-free on certain days and hours.

But also in my career, I've worked on public policy, marketing and public relations. And the folks that work to defeat anti-smoking are failing to put up a successful fight because it counters with an ineffective message.

What they fail to do is challenge the anti-smoking crowd with the message "The opportunity is there for you to be rich."

Simply, the anti-smoking crowd always claim business will increase. I always counter, "Then you should open a restaurant or bar. You'll be rich!" I've never had one of them tell me, "You're right!" Their argument is usually personal, "I don't want to be around smokers," but when it comes to addressing them making money by marketing the opportunity to attract a lot of non-smokers (70 percent by most research reports), they're deer-in-the-headlights.

There's a restaurant chain that operates in St. Louis and Kansas City, First Watch, which adopted its own no-smoking policy and their business model is successful. I salute them, they get it.

But smart people get it. No smoking laws always punish business. The majority of the no-smoking crowd don't alter their lifestyle if a restaurant or business has smokers. They go. They admit it too.

In the bowling center industry, no-smoking as the absolute law isn't working. Spillway Lanes in Springfield, Illinois closed its doors shortly after the smoking ban was adopted there. There are hundreds of others nationally that did the same thing in the past seven years.

Vicki Bowman, general manager of Gladstone Bowl in the suburbs of Kansas City proves it with a research report conducted for the Greater Kansas City Bowling Association. It shows the drop in business at centers in no-smoking communities, and the increase of business in centers that are located in cities that doesn't have a ban:

Vicki Bowman's report:

The Missouri Bowling Proprietors Association of America is headed by Gary Voss and he tirelessly works hard in behalf of his colleagues and the industry. His center, West County Lanes is located just yards away from Ballwin, Missouri which has a smoking ban. He knows the impact. And I'm hoping he'll show up and present Vicki's report to them.

We all have been inundated with the health care issue (which really isn't about health care, but paying for it, so it's really a health insurance matter). A friend of mine this week said, "There sure seems to be a great business for meddling."

She's right. And my former colleague at KMOX radio, Jim White, said it best:

"Please Lord, save me from the good people."

The so-called "good people" will tell you they are good. The anti-smokers have the attitude that they are the good people. That means smokers must be bad people.

Remember what I wrote above, "Why do we need a law?" Ask yourself this:

Don't you think we have enough laws? Too many of them aren't enforced as is. Start there first then get back with me about this issue.