An effort is under way in the Missouri Legislature to keep local governments from imposing tougher smoking restrictions for casinos than what their competitors face.
The bill would prohibit local smoking bans at casinos if smoking is still allowed at a competing casino within 75 miles. It is sponsored by Rep. Bill Otto, D-St. Charles, whose district includes the Hollywood and Ameristar casinos.
The measure would bar the St. Louis County Council from ending the exemptions from the county’s smoking ban for Hollywood in Maryland Heights and River City Casino in Lemay. The council has been considering in recent weeks removing those and most other exemptions.
Hollywood, formerly known as Harrah’s, is just across the Missouri River from Ameristar in St. Charles, where there is no smoking ban.
The state proposal also would prevent St. Charles County from enacting a smoking ban for Ameristar unless one was already in place at Hollywood and other St. Louis-area casinos.
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Otto says he wants to keep one area casino from gaining a temporary advantage over another.
Eventually, he said, he expects that all local communities in the St. Louis area will enact bans on smoking in casinos, bars and other public places with few exemptions, although he opposes such restrictions on businesses.
“These counties will fall one at a time,” Otto said. “It will really be detrimental to whichever casino goes nonsmoking first. This will just kill them.”
Otto said his bill would allow cities or a county “to do whatever they want fully understanding they won’t affect the casinos immediately.”
Lobbyists for Ameristar and Penn National Gaming, which owns Hollywood, said they supported Otto’s measure but did not ask him to sponsor it. Otto has not received any campaign contributions from casinos or their executives, according to the most recent reports.
“It places us all on a level playing field,” said Troy Stremming, an Ameristar executive.
Pat Lindsey, executive director of the Tobacco-Free St. Louis Coalition, opposes the bill and other so-called “trigger” measures tying action on smoking in one jurisdiction to that in another.
“It just kind of holds everything back,” she said. “We just need to get rid of the smoke.”
Also opposed is Misty Snodgrass, who lobbies for the Cancer Action Network, an affiliate of the American Cancer Society.
“Local communities should be able to pass whatever strong ordinance they want to pass,” she said.
St. Louis County Councilman Mike O’Mara, who is sponsoring the pending proposal to eliminate most exemptions to the county smoking ban, said he needed to review Otto’s bill before taking a position on it.
“If it’s a fairness bill to keep everyone on the same page, I could live with that,” said O’Mara, D-Florissant.
At the St. Charles County Council, the main advocate of unsuccessful smoking ban legislation last year — Councilman Joe Cronin, R-St. Paul — said he didn’t object to Otto’s goal. However, he said the mileage radius should be reduced, perhaps to 25 miles.
St. Charles County has no countywide ban, but its council has considered several versions in recent years and is likely to do so again.
Cronin noted that at one point, he sponsored a smoking ban bill with an exemption for Ameristar that would expire when other casinos on the Missouri side of the metro area went smoke-free.
A statewide smoking ban in Illinois already covers Metro East casinos.
Cronin also has fought with Ameristar over another version.
That proposal would have let voters decide separately on a smoking ban and exempting places where all customers and workers are over 21, such as casinos and bars.
The council voted last year to put that on the November ballot, but the county elections director removed it because of technical errors.
Cronin said he planned to try again at the next countywide election but was still working on details of the legislation. The earliest it would likely be on the ballot is August 2014.
Meanwhile, two other area lawmakers — Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, and Rep. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur — recently filed bills seeking a statewide smoking ban. Similar measures have gone nowhere in past sessions.
Otto’s state bill also would affect the Lumière Place casino in St. Louis. Officials with Pinnacle Entertainment, which owns both the Lumière and River City facilities and has announced plans to buy Ameristar, could not be reached for comment.
The state proposal also would apply to competing casinos in the Kansas City area.
Lumière’s exemption from St. Louis’ smoking ban already is tied by law to its competitors. The city’s smoking ordinance says the Lumière exemption would be phased out once smoking bans are imposed on casinos in St. Louis and St. Charles counties.
Otto, as a freshman Democrat in the heavily Republican House, typically would have an uphill climb getting a bill passed in his first year in Jefferson City.
To build support, he’s lined up as co-sponsors House members from several other districts around the state that also have casinos. In all, he has 11 co-sponsors, seven Republicans and four Democrats.
Stremming, the Ameristar lobbyist, said, “I’m hopeful a good idea like this can get some momentum.”
