Smoking will indeed be allowed at “Missouri Athletic Club” despite city law

Posted September 20, 2012 2:58 pm by

Smoking will indeed be allowed at “Missouri Athletic Club” despite city law

 

 

Smoking will indeed be allowed at “Missouri Athletic Club” despite city law   

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ST. LOUIS • Smoking will indeed be allowed at downtown’s aristocratic Missouri Athletic Club — despite city law expressly barring it in private clubs with employees.

As expected by some and feared by others, health director Pam Walker has dismissed the city’s charges against the gym and social club, following a MAC board decision to limit smoking to seven areas.

The club has flouted the law since it was enacted Jan. 1, 2011.

Attorneys, judges, businessmen and politicos gathered frequently for evening cigar-and-whisky sessions, and ashtrays were commonplace even after voters passed the citywide smoking ban.

Walker fined the club twice, and was pushing it to bar smoking building-wide. The club fought the tickets, however, and city attorneys advised the health director to consider settling, fearing the MAC would sue and challenge the city’s entire ordinance.

Then, in late August, the club’s board voted to limit smoking, according to board documents released Friday night by Walker.

The rule limited smoking to the President’s Alcove, some private second-floor dining rooms, sections of the pool deck, and the first-floor Jack Buck Grill’s bar, site of the weekly cigar gatherings. In addition, smoking will be allowed in no more than 20 percent of the club’s hotel rooms, and at five yearly events in the Art Lounge and Missouri Room.

“Members are urged to use good judgment when smoking cigars in those areas of the club where smoking is permitted,” the ruling says.

Club leaders have long declined to publicly discuss their decisions.

Walker said she accepted the club board’s decision and dropped the case against the club, in exchange for payment of $48.50 in court costs.

“I will carefully monitor their enforcement of these restrictions and issue further summons if they do not comply,” Walker said Friday night via email.

But even those who fought against the citywide ban were skeptical today of the special treatment.

“That’s unprecedented. For a public health official, that’s never been done,” said anti-ban advocate Bill Hannegan. “Implicitly, she’s saying smoking is tolerable under certain circumstances.”

“Why not ‘over 21’ bars then?” he asked.

Hannegan said he spoke with a professor at Boston University who specializes in tobacco control issues, who said he had never heard of a public health official rolling back a smoking ban.

Walker has long said she felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Still, Hannegan said one thing is clear: “It opens the door for bars to petition for their own exemption. If she can do this for the MAC, why can’t she do this for other establishments?”

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