Posted on 09/18/2003 12:45:25 PM PDT by 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."
No problem. It happens. Carry on.
From Post #6:
Now, as consumers, they have every right to patronize businesses that cater to their needs, and private businesses have every right to cater to them.
You must also have missed this exchange, in Post #26:
HSP: In all fairness, though, the article points out that these businesses are going smoke-free of their own accord. Govt has not forced it.
TPB: Agreed, and I support private property rights fully.
No thanks. You're doing enough of that for both of us. Go back to DU, troll.
You did that, it wasn't a suggestion, it was a matter of fact. And DU is where the control freak anti property rights people are, so maybe you should go hang with your buddies.
Denial won't help you, the posts are there for all to see.
Face it, your days are numbered.
Me either. I usually stay away from FR smoking threads. There are some vicious people - and these are the only threads they spend time on. I think another serious and dangerous side-effect from nicotine is crankiness.
Cheers, CC :)
The blatherings of ignorance and the intellect of those for whom Boyle's Law is a poker reference.
Fluid mechanics makes the comparison hilarious.
We're talking advanced Jr. High School level knowledge here...
Bottom line: it is not only possible, but extremely simple to separate air transfers and to isolate them totally and indefinitely. That's not possible for water.
I guess facts are lost on the terminally ignorant and controlling. Smoking nazis are a total joke.
That's odd.
I always thought of you as having a modicum of fact-based intellectual horsepower.
Call it a little hiccup...
Number two - Would you care to share some of the studies and such that you get your numbers from?
I'm afraid that you are using some incorrect data, knowingly or unknowingly.
Call it a little hiccup...
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