  Simple symmetry considerations would suggest that the transition from the
smectic-A phase to the long-range bond orientationally ordered hexatic
smectic-B phase should belong to the XY universality class. However, a number
of experimental studies have constantly reported over the past twenty years
"novel" critical behavior with non-XY critical exponents for this transition.
Bruinsma and Aeppli argued in Physical Review Letters {\bf 48}, 1625 (1982),
using a $4-\epsilon$ renormalization-group calculation, that short-range
molecular herringbone correlations coupled to the hexatic ordering drive this
transition first order via thermal fluctuations, and that the critical behavior
observed in real systems is controlled by a `nearby' tricritical point. We have
revisited the model of Bruinsma and Aeppli and present here the results of our
study. We have found two nontrivial strongly-coupled herringbone-hexatic fixed
points apparently missed by those authors. Yet, those two new nontrivial
fixed-points are unstable, and we obtain the same final conclusion as the one
reached by Bruinsma and Aeppli, namely that of a fluctuation-driven first order
transition. We also discuss the effect of local two-fold distortion of the bond
order as a possible missing order parameter in the Hamiltonian.
