Cast Your Vote Here on St. Louis County Smoking Ban!

At long last, the measure discussed ad nauseam in this here blog and other local media is before St. Louis County voters today.

Should the majority of county voters today say "yes" to a smoking ban, a (somewhat) similar smoking ban would also go into effect in St. Louis City.

Neither smoking bans are blanket prohibitions.

In the county, taverns that earn less than 25 percent of their revenue from food sales (establishments deemed "drinking bars") would be exempted from the ban.

In the city, small taverns (defined as having customer space of less than 2,000 square feet) would have a five-year grace period in which to transition to non-smoking. Both the county and city smoking bans would exempt casinos, and neither bill would go into effect until January 2011.

Obviously, this legislation is going to affect a great deal of people. Yet despite that, few county residents (perhaps just 10 percent of registered voters) are expected to show at the polls today.

That's why this blog post is for the majority -- the 90 percent of you too lazy to go to the polls or those who don't live in the county and can't cast a vote anyway.

Where do you all stand on the issue? Continue on to cast your vote.