Butt Heads (St. Louis)


St. Louis	SUPPORT BAN? (Y/N/U)	SMOKER? (S/NS/Q)	PACKS (#/day)	BRAND	YRS SMOKED (#)	TIMES TRIED TO QUIT (� = SUCCESS)
NAME/TITLE
Francis Slay, Mayor	BUTT HEAD
Jeff Rainford (Slay - Chief of Staff)¹	Y	NS
Barbara Geisman (Slay - Deputy Mayor)	BUTT HEAD
Ron Smith (Slay - Chief of Operations)	cnr
Robbyn Wahby (Slay - Senior Aide)²	n/c	Q	"A lot"	Benson & Hedges	15	many^�
Ed Rhode (Slay - Communications)	Y	NS^�		^�occasional cigar
Tim Embree (Slay - Senior Aide)³	n/c	Q	<1	Camel Lights	8	1^�
Lewis Reed, Alderman (Board President)	BUTT HEAD
Tom Shepard (Reed - Chief of Staff)	BUTT HEAD
Harry Kennedy (Reed - Legislative Director)	BUTT HEAD
Rory Roundtree (Reed - Communications)	Y^R	NS
(Ward 1) Charles Quincy Troupe, Alderman⁴	Y	Q	4	"Anything I could get"	7	2^�
(2) Dionne Flowers⁵	U	NS
(3) Freeman M. Bosley Sr.⁶	Y	Q	<1		1	1^�
(4) Samuel L. Moore	BUTT HEAD
(5) April Ford-Griffin⁷	Y	NS
(6) Kacie Starr Triplett	BUTT HEAD
(7) Phyllis Young	Y^RS	NS
(8) Stephen Conway⁸	U	S	n/c	"The cheapest"	many	1
(9) Kenneth Ortmann⁹	N	NS^�		^�occasional cigar
(10) Joseph Vollmer¹⁰	N	S^�		^�cigars
(11) Matt Villa	BUTT HEAD
(12) Fred Heitert	Y^S	Q	>1	Winston	>20	3^�
(13) Alfred Wessels Jr.	BUTT HEAD
(14) Stephen Gregali¹¹	N	Q^�	n/c	^�occasional cigar or cigarette	>15	1
(15) Jennifer Florida¹²	Y^S	NS
(16) Donna Baringer	BUTT HEAD
(17) Joseph D. Roddy	BUTT HEAD
(18) Terry Kennedy	Y	NS
(19) Marlene Davis¹³	Y	Q	<1	Kool	15	1^�
(20) Craig Schmid¹⁴	U	NS
(21) Antonio D. French¹⁵	U	NS
(22) Jeffrey Boyd	BUTT HEAD
(23) Joe Vaccaro	BUTT HEAD
(24) William Waterhouse	BUTT HEAD
(25) Shane Cohn¹⁶	U	NS
(26) Frank Williamson¹⁷	Y	S	<1	Newport	34	5
(27) Gregory Carter¹⁸	U	Q	<1	"I don't remember"	>10	1^�
(28) Lyda Krewson¹⁹	Y	NS
Darlene Green, Comptroller	BUTT HEAD
John Zakibe (Green - Deputy Comptroller)	BUTT HEAD
Ivy Neyland-Pinkston (Green - Deputy Comptroller)	BUTT HEAD
Elaine Spearman (Green - Legal Advisor)	U	Q	<1	"Something menthol"	5	1^�
John Farrell (Green - Communications)	BUTT HEAD
Jennifer Joyce, Circuit Attorney	Y	Q	3	"Any and all"	12	many^�
Mariano Favazza, Circuit Clerk	N	S^�		^�cigars
¹I have asthma. My father died of emphysema and my stepfather died of heart disease, which was caused by his smoking.
²I quit when I was running for office. Leaders don't do things that set bad examples.
³I was in the military, and tobacco use was very prevalent.
⁴Morally, medically, logically, I support a smoking ban in the City of St. Louis. But if we make it a money-driven issue, I see no reason to vote for it. It's got to be pure, and be about health.
⁵I dressed up as Minnie Mouse one time for Halloween and [some of my fellow aldermen] gave me a cigar to take a picture with. I couldn't keep it lit!
⁶I was sneaking and smoking in high school because the girl that I liked smoked. We got married, she kept smoking, and I used to put her out on the back porch.
⁷It's like music. I can enjoy my music, but it shouldn't bother anybody else. We have a law against playing loud music.
⁸I do taxes [as a CPA], and tax season is always a burden. But that's over now, so this is the time when we [accountants try to] quit.
⁹I think there should be exemptions. I think we need to work on it.
¹⁰Cigarette smokers have an addiction. I've gone weeks and months without having a cigar.
¹¹I'm one of those people who, if I want one, I have one. It's more of a social thing. I'll bum whatever the guy next to me has.
¹²I was raised by smokers; I grew up in the back of a Cadillac — my mother and father were road musicians — and they both smoked like fiends. So I've probably inhaled enough secondhand smoke to do me in.
¹³I woke up one day and just decided I didn't want to smell like smoke anymore. I didn't want to spend my money on it anymore. I'm kind of cheap. It just didn't make sense.
¹⁴I'm mulling over whether there should be exceptions for places like casinos, where you have to be a certain age to enter.
¹⁵I would encourage more non-smoking places. I did have lunch today at J. Buck's with a member of the mayor's office, who shall remain nameless, and who smokes.
¹⁶My vote depends on whether the bill is constitutional. But ultimately I do support a smoke-free St. Louis.
¹⁷I'm trying to quit. I need all the help I can get.
¹⁸I can't stand the smell of cigarettes now. My chest starts hurting.
¹⁹I'm not one of these people who's adamantly anti-smoking, like if I'm around somebody who's smoking, I don't get up and move. I think if you're a customer, yes, you can make a choice to be in a smoking or non-smoking environment, but if you're a worker, you can't.
KEY:
cnr: Could not be reached
Butt Head: Declined to participate or, like Mayor Slay, did not return message(s)
n/c: No comment


Robbyn Wahby, senior aide to Mayor Francis Slay I was born in 1963. Things were really different. Smoking was the "grown-up" thing to do. Everybody smoked. You made ashtrays in your pottery class at school. For girls it was much like wearing makeup: a rite of passage.... I used to put them in my socks in high school and sneak them into the house. Did you know we had a smoking section at Cleveland High School?

Charles Quincy Troupe, St. Louis alderman, Ward 1 How did I quit? I was talking to this little white lady and she was saying, "You're really having a problem smoking." I said, "Yeah, I can't quit." She said, "This is what I did: I took a cigarette, took one big drag, then put it back in the pack. Because that's all you really want is the first drag anyway. So I did that for about a week and a half and that was like 35 years ago. I've never smoked another cigarette since." She gave me a system that worked. Now, I never in my life smoked marijuana. But if I had a choice today whether I'd do marijuana or cigarettes, I'd take the joint. And if I had a choice for my kids, I'd rather see them smoke marijuana than a cigarette.

Freeman Bosley Sr., St. Louis alderman, Ward 3 I'm the one that made it outlawed in all city buildings. I've introduced about three pieces of anti-smoking legislation over the years. Most of the aldermen were really ticked off at me. During my smoking studies, I found out that rats, possums, raccoons, water bugs, beetles love tobacco leaves. And they eat them. And when the farmers scoop up the leaves with a frontloader or something, they put them in this grinder, and the roaches and mice and water bugs get ground up in there — and the flesh stinks. That is why they sprinkle tobacco leaves with formaldehyde — that's what they pickle dead people with! And sometimes when you're smoking, you notice a little zap! I tell people that's the rat eyeballs and roach ears and possum guts that you're smoking there!

Fred Heitert, St. Louis alderman, Ward 12 I quit once for nine years. Another time I quit for a couple months. The last time I said: This is it forever. My wife never started and I thank God. I wish everybody could kick the habit.... I've told some of the smokers who have called me, I say, "You've got to stop and think about it: Only one out of every five people smoke, so you are definitely one in a very, very, very small minority. But your health costs are more than twice mine!"

Stephen Gregali, St. Louis alderman, Ward 14 I have fond memories of my former colleague, Albert "Red" Villa, puffing away in the chamber. Smoking wasn't banned in the chamber of the Board of Aldermen till after he left [in the early '90s]. He had been there for 30 years. He used to sit at his desk at the end of the aisle, in the back row, during the session, smoking a cigar.

Frank Williamson, St. Louis alderman, Ward 26 I've tried real hard probably about four to five times to quit.... Here's a story: This has only happened to me one time. I picked up a cigarette and had the lit cigarette turned the wrong way. It really hurt. I was really mad at myself. I got a blister. It really pissed me off. But it didn't make me stop.

Jennifer Joyce, St. Louis circuit attorney I smoked all through college and law school and during my early years as an attorney. I quit when I was 30. Both my parents died of cancer, so it was pretty ridiculous to be sitting there smoking as much as I was. Quitting smoking was a thousand times harder than graduating law school. It's my proudest accomplishment.... I had a friend and she said, "Call me if you're ever going to smoke." And one night I was about to, and I called my friend and she said, "OK, go ahead — but before you do, walk to the Schnucks on Arsenal, buy a salad, bring it home and eat it." I said, "OK, fine." I went off in a huff. Well, it was like a five-mile walk! But it turned out to be the best advice, because by the time I walked two and a half miles to Schnucks, got my damn salad, walked two and a half miles back, I was totally over the idea of having a cigarette. That was the end of it for me.

Mariano Favazza, St. Louis circuit clerk You may know I lost 132 pounds recently. I gave up one bad habit, eating, and picked up another, smoking cigars. I will light a cigar and often re-light that cigar like five times in a day, and maybe not even finish it.... There are several people in the courthouse who have private offices like mine who occasionally light up. And most of those are people like judges. So I wouldn't be the only one to strike a match in the courthouse [where it is illegal to smoke]. I'll fess up: Yes, I do. And quite honestly, I never thought there was an issue with that. If there is, somebody has to tell me.