3.19.26

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As the father of a 2-year-old in South City, I don’t need any convincing that the Missouri Botanical Garden is an absolute gem. The little guy has spent many a day wearing himself out in the Children’s Garden, clowning with the raccoon statues, getting on and off and on those sheep. I could keep listing the things that he—and, by extension, his parents—love about MoBOT and it would be a while until I got to anything having to do with the pretty plants. But as I learned from Sarah Fenske’s interview with the garden’s new president Lucia Lohmann on The 314 Podcast, those plants are a big deal, and not just for aesthetic reasons. MoBOT is a global leader in botany, putting St. Louis in a very rarified group in that regard. Lohmann says that she wants to use the garden’s world-class reputation to help sell the world on St. Louis. I’m all for it. And listening to her interview, it sounds like those sheep aren’t going anywhere either.  

We have much more sprouting up today as well: the scoop on city food trucks, tea on a pair of park rangers who got into a hot pursuit, and the mayor changing the kids’ curfew downtown. Read on!  

Have a story idea? Reply to this email, or send me a message at rkrull@stlmag.com.

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5 Things to Do

📖 Lindy West at COCA

😂 Fiona Cauley at Helium

🎵 Final Draft at City Winery

📚 Elizabeth Vartkessian at SLCL

🎤 Whitney Cummings at The Factory

Alderman Rasheen Aldridge hopes to make life in the city easier for food trucks. Photography courtesy of Grace Meat + Three

THIS JUST IN

Bill would create 5 food truck 'vending zones' 

Business may soon get easier for food trucks in St. Louis city. An aldermanic committee yesterday approved legislation that would establish five zones where food trucks can serve up their fare between 6 a.m. and 1 a.m. Right now, food truck operators need to get four licenses and permits from four different entities, only to be able to operate in very limited areas other than at special events. Bill sponsor Alderman Rasheen Aldridge said that he keeps hearing the same complaint from food truck owners, who tell him, "The process in the city is so jacked up. I get my licenses and can’t go anywhere, so I go to the county.”

Bryan Scott, who owns Doggie Mac's, spoke in favor of Aldridge’s bill, saying that food trucks are closing by the dozens every year. “That’s because we don’t have places to vend, primarily.”

• The five proposed zones encompass areas in Soulard, Grand Center, and downtown, as well as around Cherokee Street in South City and the soccer stadium in Downtown West. Food trucks that want to vend in city parks still need the approval of the Parks Department. The bill includes provisions requiring vendors to display placards that can be scanned by Streets Department personnel, confirming the truck is up to date on its permits. It still needs to pass the full board. —R.K.

Lúcia G. Lohmann wants MoBOT to bolster St. Louis' reputation internationally. Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

DEEP DIVE

Lúcia Lohmann sees MoBOT as a ‘window from St. Louis to the world’

When Lúcia G. Lohmann moved to St. Louis to become the president and director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in January 2025, she had a sense of what she was getting into. A native of Brazil, Lohmann earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Missouri St. Louis—a university she chose because of its proximity to MoBOT.

“I  really feel this is the place where I grew up as a scientist, and the thought of coming back to St. Louis in this capacity and contributing to the long future of the institution and botany as a whole was an opportunity I couldn't pass up,” she says, adding, “ I always considered St. Louis as my second home after Sao Paulo.”

In her first year on the job, Lohmann has been putting her stamp on the garden and its 500 employees, including a reorganization that saw the departure of three senior leaders. MoBOT is now embarking on a period of strategic planning to shape its future.

“After we get the right team, right structure in place, the second year is strategic planning,” she says in a new episode of The 314 Podcast. “We just launched our kickoff meeting last week about the strategic planning, and the goal is really to think, OK, what will be our key priorities moving forward?”

Why It Matters: Lohmann believes the Missouri Botanical Garden is one of just three global leaders in botany (along with the New York Botanical Garden and Kew Gardens). “When we talk to the botanical community, everybody knows about Missouri Botanical Garden—in a little city, in Indonesia, in Cambodia, in China, anywhere in Africa. Anybody doing research knows about the garden and knows about St. Louis.” That means St. Louis’ future depends in, some ways, on MoBOT’s success with Lohmann at the helm.

What’s Next: MoBOT’s next show, Patterns in Nature: The Art of HYBYKOZO, opens April 10. To learn how to pronounce that name, how Lohmann wants to change popular public-facing events such as Garden Glow, and a funny little secret from her first stint in St. Louis, catch the full podcast interview. —Sarah Fenske

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Today's Top Stories

• Missouri lawmakers consider a bill to make it easier to place foster kids in unlicensed Christian care facilities (Missouri Independent): Supporters say the bill would expand placement options for children in state custody, while critics worry it could shelter bad actors.
  
  
• Court orders Missouri to issue 13 cannabis licenses after scoring flaws are exposed (Missouri Independent): A Missouri appeals court delivered a sweeping rebuke of the state’s marijuana licensing process, ordering regulators to award one company 13 facility licenses after finding the 2019 scoring was deeply flawed.
  
  
• Fatal Chesterfield plane crash was the fourth involving the same aircraft (FOX2now): Since 2005, four Central Air Southwest aircraft have crashed, all involving the Aero Commander 500B aircraft

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A scene from a South City "street takeover" last weekend. The mayor is now establishing a curfew. Screenshot

Around Town

🌆 CITY LIVING

Last weekend’s 314 Day celebrations drew headlines for the wrong reasons, as groups of young people took over parts of downtown and south St. Louis, doing burnouts and slideshows in their cars, shooting off fireworks and doing whatever tomfoolery this video shows when the police arrived at the scene. Though it won’t be 314 Day again until 2027, the weather this weekend will be nice and kids will still be out of school on spring break. Also, the NCAA tournament will bring many tourists in town. Both the mayor’s office and the police say they’re prepared. Mayor Cara Spencer announced yesterday that the weekend curfew for juveniles will be temporarily moved up from midnight to 10 p.m. in downtown and Downtown West. The city will also be at the ready to deploy ad hoc traffic calming measures to disrupt dangerous driving. Police say they’re monitoring social media to scout for these events. “We will spike your tires,” said Police Chief Robert Tracy at a press conference. “We’ll impound your cars.”

City Hall staffers are adamant that the ongoing budget feud between the mayor and the Police Board is in no way hampering collaboration on this sort of public safety blocking and tackling. For her part, Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer is thinking longer term than this coming weekend. Her Ward 1 was subject to a "takeover" at Gravois and Morgan Ford, and she says it’s no coincidence that particular intersection was chosen as the site for mayhem. Three streets converge there in a triangle with minimal traffic calming infrastructure. “It’s a wide open intersection,” she says. “We need to make it so that when these idiotic and incredibly disturbing events happen, they aren't happening in the City of St. Louis because our intersections are not friendly to them, and they will destroy their vehicles if they try anyway.”—R.K.

🏛️ LETTER FROM JEFFERSON CITY

One crucial leap of economic mobility—both for the leaper and St. Louis as a whole—is a move out of homelessness and into stability. That move is hard to make without an ID, one reason advocates across Missouri have been dreaming of a day when our state follows the lead of other red states and provides unhoused people with IDs at no cost. This dream felt a bit closer to reality a couple of weeks ago, when state Rep. Jeff Hales  (D-University City) filed a bill proposing that Missouri give “nondriver’s licenses at no cost to individuals who certify their homeless status.” Hales says he’s primarily worried about those locals' ability to vote: Under current law, the state will furnish you with a free nondriver’s license for voting purposes if you don’t already have one, but that doesn’t help the great number of people who live in shelters or on the street and have unexpired cards that have been lost or stolen. “We need to make it as easy as we possibly can for people to vote who have the right to vote,” Hales says.

But the benefits would go much further, argues John Stamm, director of the Missouri State ID Access Coalition. During his recent conversations in Jefferson City with Republican legislators, he says, he’d walk them through the things that IDs unlock: jobs, housing, and more. Explaining such a “clear upside,” Stamm says, “ended up being more helpful in those conversations than I’d anticipated.” Still, many remained hesitant because of the looming budget crunch and a logjam of other legislation. No committee hearing was scheduled at press time for Hales’ bill. The value of the bill, Stamm believes, is to familiarize Jeff City with the concept for the long run. And electeds needn’t look far to find supporters, he adds. “No matter who we’re talking to, there’s usually, in their district, an organization or two that would support this,” says Stamm. “We have very conservative religious organizations. We have very liberal LGBTQ support centers…. The broad support, I think, is pretty rare.” —Nicholas Phillips

Installation view of Dialogues & Conversations at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, March 6–August 9, 2026. Photography by Suzy Gorman.

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Heard on the Street

• Drawing a challenger. Sharon Tyus. The North City alderwoman will compete for reelection against Ebony Williams, a community organizer who announced her bid for the Ward 12 seat. Tyus is known for her lengthy tirades at the aldermanic meetings, usually delivered via Zoom—not that it has hurt her politically. She’s been a board member since the 1990s, though she did lose her seat to redistricting prior to returning to City Hall in 2013.
  
  
• Suspended. Two St. Louis County park rangers. The pair perhaps got a little too into their work when they encountered a motorist doing donuts in Queeny Park on January 26. A chase ensued through the mean streets of Town and Country. The driver got away and now  the two rangers, who are not law enforcement, are the subject of an ongoing investigation. A county spokesman declined to offer more details, saying it is a personnel matter.

Quick Hits 

Take 5: What to do in St. Louis this weekend

Still five figures, for now: WashU tuition goes up

South City splendor: Tower Grove charmer hits the market

Yemeni chai: Growing coffee shop to open its first MO location

Ready, set…: Students shape up for GO! Saint Louis Marathon

📸 GAME TIME

Where In The Lou?

Think you know St. Louis? Well, where in the Lou did we take this photo? Each week, we’ll share an image and you can mark your best guess on our interactive map. Save your guess to our leaderboard for a chance to compete for prizes. Play Now »

Last week’s photo showed the campus of Grand and Tholozan in South City. Congratulations to the panoply of Daily readers who nailed it: Ann Auer, Annie Lehrer, Anthony Aubuchon, Barbara Liebman, Becky Reinhart, Brandon Eldridge, Bridget McDermott, Chelsea Merta, Christian Bishop, Ciara Fornicola, Dan Vomund, Rob Krosley, Robert Diesbach, Ron Crooks, Russ Devitt, Sarah Felts, Scott Holl, Sean Belt, Susan Allen, Susan Szerzinski, Suzanne Furay, Tammy Ritterskamp, Tex Randle, Timothy G. O’Connell, Tommy Nagel, Wes Harbison, Madison Baker-Wilmes, Marty Koenig, Mary E Anderson, Meg Beugg, Megan Davis, Meghan Speiser, Meredith Jackson, Michael Dauphin, Michael Rengel, Michelle Heitmann, Mike Gibbs, Nick McClane, Paul Sableman, Randy Vines, Rich Seifert, Richard Payton, Joe Lampe, John Joseph Ryan, John Riti, Julia Hon, Julie Vomund, Justin Stein, Karen Matteuzzi, Kathy Crowley, Katy Glass, Kim Brown, Kristina Goodwin, Kyla Oudshoorn, Alison Gee, Rick Rosen, Dave Custis, Debra Knox Deiermann, Dylan Mosier, Emily Dietz, Emma Prince, Eric Schmid, Gunter Hans, Jacob Rohter, Jean Webb, M.Schroeder, Maciek StL, Richard H, Matt G, Lizzy, Louis, Steve K, Vin, Vinnie, Nicole, Renee, Gary G, Debbie G, Katie M., Kelly E, Allison, Andy B, Andy S, Bret M, Claire, Mollywog, and A. Raw. Phew!

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