Smoking Ban Policy in Urban St. Louis, Essay Example

In November 2009, the city and county of St. Louis, MO, passed a bill that banned smoking in public businesses.  A recent emergence of similar bills has rushed across the United States over the last five years and has been passed by many urban cities and governments across the country.  This clearly shows the desire for governments and citizens to engage in healthier business and social decisions that will increase the quality of life in their respective areas.  This trend has finally found a climax with the recent passage of laws that require businesses and public venues to become smoke free.  Yet, the city is not completely smoke free as there are some limitation and exceptions that have been provided within the bill; this has become a source of tension within the St. Louis as well.  However, there are several major theoretical perspectives on urban politics in the United States that can provide a framework to which such a policy can truly be analyzed.  Through combining the urban regime and rational choice theories, the smoking ban in St. Louis can properly be analyzed for its efficiency and effectiveness of urban policymaking.

The smoking ban in St. Louis and St. Louis County were on the most recent November ballot for the local city and county citizens to vote.  The bill that was called Proposition N was passed by an outstanding amount of over 65% of the total votes (Volkmann par. 3).  The bill was originally passed by the St. Louis County Board of Alderman in October, but was contingent on the county’s voters to pass the bill through the November election.  Although the bill requires a county and city-wide limitation of smoking in public places, there are limitations that have been included within the bill that has many opponents arguing against it.  Such limitations include allowing casinos and certain local bars and restaurants to remain to have smoking sections or outside smoking available for customers and passersby.  Unfortunately for nonsmokers, this does not eliminate the second hand smoke that is continuing to impact the overall health of the city and the individuals that reside within the county limits.  Opponents are arguing that the government’s policy is not strict enough and its exemptions to local businesses are based solely on economic grounds instead of logic and utilitarian concern.  The philosophy of Proposition N is what has caused thousands of people to cry out against the bill although over 89,000 registered voters were in favor of the bill as it was written.

To completely understand the city and county’s urban policy decision surrounding this issue, it is important to analyze the existence of urban regime theory and its application to this issue.  First of all, urban regime theory “asks how and under what conditions do different types of governing coalitions emerge, consolidate and become hegemonic, and how they devolve and transform” (Anttiroiko par. 4).  This theory acknowledges that many different groups and organizations have power over influencing political policymaking and campaigning for political decisions within the community and other political realms.  For instance, lobbying organizations and political action committees such as Smoke Free St. Louis and Tobacco Free Missouri campaigned very much to spread the word about the dangers of smoking to influence citizens to vote in favor of passing the bill.  While these organizations act as one major political regime to help implement change within urban policy on smoking in St. Louis, many local businesses argued against the passing of the Proposition N.  Local bars and restaurants lobbied the city council as well as spoke to newspapers and other media outlets concerning a projected loss of revenue for the companies within the local community if smoking would not be permitted.  While these two different bodies of political regime power worked against one another, the presence of the actual government finally acted as a third regime within this theory.  By having the bill pass through the St. Louis County Board of Alderman in October, the message was very clear to citizens that this was the right thing to do.  The political regimes each played a role in influencing urban policy and voting behavior based on the information that was being shared through media outlets, newspapers, and through community-wide campaigns throughout St. Louis County.

Furthermore, the actions of the citizens and the government can also be analyzed from another well-known theory that applies to this situation known as the rational choice theory.  Rational choice theory essentially assumes that individuals and groups make decisions that are in their own best interests based on rational, calculated decisions that will formulate actions based on a set list of personal and interpersonal preferences that can be clearly defined (Scott 2).  Under this theory, it is proposed that individuals will make decisions for their own best interests using logical decision making.  For instance, the citizens were being told that second hand smoke is responsible for killing millions of individuals and negatively affecting the lives of friends, family members, and so much more.  As citizens were being inundated with this campaign information in favor of Proposition N, they logically decided to vote to pass the bill so that their own health and the health of the city and county would improve.  While this can appear to be an excellent logical decision, the economics of the situation were not applied, which can be argued as a flaw of the rational choice theory or a flaw of personal and interpersonal interests.  Either way, the negative affects that will impact the economy and the current position of the local businesses will obviously be a long term consequence of this bill.  Very little information exists to support such information, but obvious analysis would argue that fewer people would enter such establishments if they were not involved in the exemptions list as it was written by the local government board.  Many of the members within the community may lose jobs if these companies go out of business, and it is doubtful that this information was even a consideration in the rational choice application of the issue.

Fortunately, this is an excellent example of urban policy where two political theories are intertwined to impact the outcome of the policy.  In essence the political regimes and individuals with power worked to campaign with the local registered voters.  While these regimes campaigned to influence voters’ decisions, rational choice was also altered due to limited information or an over abundance of information showing the positive health outcomes of passing Proposition N.  Therefore, it is clear that urban regime theory has the ability to impact rational choice theory because rationality within the voting population is skewed.  Economics was not a major concern for voters on this issue; instead, they were more interested in potential health consequences than economic considerations.

Proposition N is a similar bill that has been passed in thousands of local communities around the United States.  While it is very similar to many other bills, the exemptions that the bill includes for casinos and a few of the local businesses will likely cause much economic hardship on other businesses where the bill is applicable for a smoke free environment.  The use of urban regime theory and rational choice theory to this urban policy development is very clear.  It is also evident that the urban regime theory, or the power of such political regimes through the course of campaigning, has an influencing ability to alter rationality and logic within the minds of voters.  It is difficult to argue that voters would not have passed the bill if the economic considerations would have been made more of a public concern; however, this case proves that rationality and logic can definitely be altered by political powers and regimes.

Works Cited

Anttiroiko, Ari-Veikko, and Ilkka Kainulainen. “Regime Theory.” University of Tampere. 10 Feb. 1998. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://www.uta.fi/~kuaran/regime.html>.

Scott, John. “Rational Choice Theory.” Iowa State University. 1 Mar. 2007. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc401rationalchoice.pdf>.

Volkmann, Kelsey. “St. Louis County voters OK smoking ban.” St. Louis Business Journal. 4 Nov. 2009. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/11/02/daily35.html>.

Wilson, William J. When Work Disappears. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Print.