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PrintCOLUMBIA — Boone County bars and restaurants currently not subject to Columbia's smoking ban would be forced to go smoke-free if legislation proposed Monday in Jefferson City passes and produces a statewide smoking ban.
State reps. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur, and Walt Bivins, R-St. Louis County, filed legislation Monday to create uniform smoke-free regulations in all Missouri bars and restaurants.
Currently, with no statewide law, standards vary throughout Missouri. Although a smoking ban has been in effect for more than three years for all businesses within the city limits of Columbia, no such regulation exists for Boone County businesses outside Columbia.
MU has its own smoking restriction that will go even further than the proposed state law or the current city law. The MU plan includes a timetable to phase out all smoking on campus by 2014.
Should Missouri adopt a statewide smoking ban? Should state legislators decide whether to enact a smoking ban, or should the decision be left to local governments? Should businesses in Boone County be subject to the same regulations as those within Columbia's city limits and at MU?
Show Me the Errors 
Comments
Don't do to Missouri bars what the Columbia smoking ban did to Otto's:
http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/...
Because prohibition and trying to legislate morality has always worked out so well in the past...
What a great idea from a left leaning paper, we can then see our state tax receipts decrease further and then we can really shrink the state government budget with more cuts to schools and more layoffs of state government employees. Good idea!
Be Careful what you wish for.
"What a great idea from a left leaning paper, we can then see our state tax receipts decrease further and then we can really shrink the state government budget with more cuts to schools and more layoffs of state government employees."
It's a question, chief. You know, meant to spark conversation. The idea actually belongs to Schupp and Bivins.