Helping Communities Become Smokefree

The Missouri Partnership on Smoking or Health wants to help communities become smokefree. The partnership can provide technical assistance to coalitions, task forces, and community groups interested in passing various clean indoor air laws including smokefree public and private worksites, restaurants, hotels, parks and recreational facilities. Communities also can ban smoking within 20 to 50 feet of the entrance of a building and assist schools, colleges and universities in the development of smokefree campus policies, which includes all activities on campus for students and adults.

It is important that communities work to pass their own smokefree ordinances to protect their citizens due to the weakness of the state law, which offers very little protection from exposure to secondhand smoke. Missouri's Clean Indoor Air Law (191.765-191.773 RSMo) was passed in 1992 and requires schools (colleges and universities are exempt), busses, and daycare centers to be smokefree. It also requires that government and private worksites and restaurants to have designated non-smoking areas. But this law exempts restaurants with less than 50 seats, bowling alleys, and bars from setting up designated non-smoking areas. The law is rarely enforced because of lack of manpower and time.