Hotels Across the U.S. Going Smoke-Free

earthlink news ^ | 9-18-03

[hoosierskypilot]

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - From New York to California, small and mid-size hotels have gone smoke-free, cleaning, deodorizing and redecorating rooms once reserved for smokers and designating them nonsmoking.

One major reason is that fewer guests are requesting smoking rooms. But hotel managers point to other benefits: lower room maintenance costs and a marketing tool at a time when the business has been hurt by a sluggish economy.

"In all of our publications, we promote a smoke-free environment, and we've gotten calls because of it. Families with kids, it's attractive to them. It reinforces cleanliness and safety," said Chris Canavos, manager of the 98-room Howard Johnson's in Williamsburg, Va., which went smoke-free during a renovation three years ago.

In New York City, which banned smoking in restaurants and bars over the summer, the 79-room Comfort Inn Midtown in the theater district just marked its second smoke-free year. For the first seven months of this year, the Comfort Inn's occupancy rate has been a strong 96 percent.

Nonsmoker Leon Der Bogosian, a jewelry wholesaler from Los Angeles who frequently travels on business, stays at the Comfort Inn Midtown an average of eight times a year. Of the smoke-free policy, he said: "I'm bound to them because of that."

"Clean air, that's the main thing for me," he said. When he recently stayed in Detroit, his nonsmoking room was on a floor with smoking rooms, and "from the elevator to the room, you could smell cigarettes."

Vijay Dandapani, chief operating officer of Apple Core Hotels, which runs the Comfort Inn Midtown, said that on average, maids have to spend an extra five minutes cleaning a smoking room, including emptying the ashtrays and scrubbing the smoke residue that settles on everything.

Moreover, hotel managers point out, the drapes, the carpets, the bedding and other furnishings need to be replaced more frequently in smoking rooms, because smokers burn holes in the furniture and cause other damage.

The switchover to no smoking also gives hotels more flexibility: Normally, when hotels are close to full, nonsmoking guests are offered smoking rooms. To many nonsmokers, that stinks. They are repelled by the hard-to-remove cigarette smell.

Many bars, restaurants and workplaces across the country have gone smoke-free over the past several years. John Banzhaf, an anti-smoking activist and professor of public interest law at George Washington University, calls hotels one of the last holdouts.

"I definitely think it will be a continuing and accelerating trend," he said. "I think hotels will try to distinguish themselves and try to provide some added value for their guests, and they'll be successful at it."

According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study of major U.S. urban markets, rooms for smokers account for 16 percent of all hotel rooms, a drop of 4 percentage points over the past five years.

In addition to New Jersey, New York and Virginia, smoke-free hotels can also be found in Delaware, California and Oklahoma, said Jeff Higley, editor in chief of the industry journal Hotel & Motel Management. There are an estimated 4.4 million hotel rooms in the United States.

Just over a month ago in Basking Ridge, about a half-hour drive west of New York City, the 171-room North Maple Inn dropped the last of its rooms for smokers. The North Maple, which caters to Fortune 500 travelers and wedding parties, now charges a $250 cleaning fee to guests who light up in their rooms - the amount the hotel says it costs to get rid of the smell.

Smokers at the North Maple are free to use five outdoor areas, including a courtyard where they can order drinks.

Some North Maple guests attending a recent corporate conference huddled outside a side entrance, chatting over a morning cigarette.

New Yorker Jonathan Smith said the policy was most bothersome just before bedtime and first thing in the morning. After putting up with the policy for three days, the 27-year smoker said: "I feel like I've been here my whole life."

Audrey Silk of the New York group Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment does not welcome the trend either: "A hotel is where you go to relax. If they're telling me I can't smoke in my room, that's not a vacation."

[metesky]

The fact is that 500,000 people die in the U.S. every year from cigarettes.

With 300 million people that's 1/6 of 1%, a miniscule number by any way of figuring. Plus not even the gub'mint can back up that figure with facts.

If they simply died, that might be one thing. But they linger.

No, they don't. When they go, they usually go quickly, saving the health system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And we pay for it in the form of lost productivity and higher taxes (to pay for their health-care).

You are either seriously misinformed or you have swallowed the Kool-Aid. The lost productivity argument is the argument of a statist who believes a person's time belongs to the company or the state. No productivity, no pay. Where's the loss? And smokers not only pay their own way with the excess taxes they pay, their taxes would pay for your health care too, if the gub'mint didn't allocate it elsewhere.

Anything to discourage people from nicotene nicotine is good.

Constantly misspelling the same word annoys me.

[qam1]

The WW2 generation paid heavily for their addiction.

What in sam hell are you talking about?

The WWII generation is living and has lived longer than any generation in the history of mankind, And yet they smoked and were exposed to SHS more than any other generation.

So how exactly have they paid dearly?

[Republicus2001]

I'm waiting for the first ADA lawsuit discriminating against those who must smoke pot for medical reasons...

[Republicus2001]

So, that being the case, I'm all in favor of govt doing whatever it needs to wean addicts from nicotene.

maybe pull people out of cars as well?

[Madame Dufarge]

That's odd. I always thought of you as having a modicum of fact-based intellectual horsepower.

Funny, I made the same mistake, too.

I stand corrected.

[qam1]

Those same gases, with the notable exception of nicotine, are in the kitchen smoke in every restaurant where meat is broiled; stinking shame.

Nope you can't escape the nicotine! It will still be there in the smoke and food if they cook or eat anything that contains potatoes, tomatoes or eggplant but then again as we all know after the antismoking/health/safety Gnatzies aren't going to stop at smoking they will never quit until we are all eating just soy and tofu.

But you are right there is nothing in 2nd hand smoke that these whiny hypochondric people aren't consistently exposed to in greater quantities in their day to day existence be it from cooking, campfires or auto exhaust yet miraculously those things don't bother them.   

But check out this from the BBC

Barbecues poison the air with toxins and could cause cancer, research suggests.

A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3106039.stm

SO, If these people who claim that smokers are polluting the air ever cooked just one barbeque then they are hypocrites because with that one Barbeque they created/released more pollution than a pack a day smoker does in 30 years!!!!!

[qam1]

A late Ping

[Not_Who_U_Think]

I appreciate your experiences, and since you were having problems you did the right thing for yourself by quitting. I just wanted to mention that these figures thrown around by the smoking nazis - "370,000, 500,000, etc" are bogus. Do you realize, that if you dropped dead today YOU would be counted among the "smoking deaths"? Outside of being hit by a bus, the propagandists count ANYONE who has EVER smoked. Just another way to pump up the numbers. Disingenuous? Of course. But if it saves just one life...

[qam1]

Face it. Your days are numbered.

We're going to hound you smokers who use/take part in out of existence. We'll make it illegal for you to use/take part in smoke , even in your home, if children are present. We're going to make it so expensive (through sin taxes) that you're going to have to pool your resources with your smoking Freedom loving buddies just to buy one cigarette use/take part in (then you'll have to take turns smoking using/doing it). And, anytime you use/take part in smoke , it'll have to be in secret. Just like when you were in high school people were living in Germany in the 1930's.

Face it, your days are numbered.

[Ditter]

In my family "they are dead Jim". ;9)

[qam1]

In everybody's family they are or will someday be all dead whether they smoked or not.

[Ditter]

No! Tell me its not true! So we are all going to die of something? Is that your final word on the subject? LOL!

[Great Dane]

"Clean air, that's the main thing for me," he said. When he recently stayed in Detroit, his nonsmoking room was on a floor with smoking rooms, and "from the elevator to the room, you could smell cigarettes."

Here we go again, is it halloween come early, all the nuts are out.

[qam1]

No! Tell me its not true!

OK, It's not true, We have a way for people to live forever, we are just waiting for the last of the baby boomers to die off before we distribute it. Shhhhhh, Don't tell anyone.

So we are all going to die of something? Is that your final word on the subject? LOL!

Yes, We are all going to die of something, someday and in most cases a lot sooner than we would like. So WTF are we wasting our short little time here on Earth worrying about whether somebody, somewhere is smoking a cigarette on somebody's private property or not.

[Great Dane]

while inhaling 32 toxic gasses, included cyanide and carbon monoxide.

Name them, I have asked the Cancer society, the Lung Association, the Heart Foundation and the government healt department, none of them could come up with even 20...... and they admitted that.

[Great Dane]

As someone said, having smoking and non-smoking areas in a restaurant is like having peeing and non-peeing areas in a swimming pool.

And aalll of you use it all the time, can't come up with something better. ??

[Great Dane]

But if this decision was made by the businesses of their own accord then I have no problem with that.

And we whole heartedly agree with you.

[Great Dane]

And I will bet, Omega actually believes that no one ever pee's in the pool.

[Great Dane]

This windy weather is so overblown in the media.

Well now, lets see, DC = politicians, a lot of gas passing there.

[Great Dane]

The fact is that 500,000 people die in the U.S. every year from cigarettes. If they simply died, that might be one thing. But they linger. And we pay for it in the form of lost productivity and higher taxes (to pay for their health-care).

And thats the biggest myth of all.