by Jennifer Eblin

Created on: March 28, 2010

It happened slowly, so slowly that smokers barely noticed it was happening. At first it was restaurants offering a smoking section, then it was restaurants taking away smoking sections and bars banning smoking inside. Then the government passed laws, restricting smoking within a certain distance from some public buildings and in some areas, you can’t even smoke in your car. We’ve come a long way from the days when stores had ashtrays sitting in the lobby.

The nail in the coffin came when hotels started banning smoking inside. The idea that this could happen was preposterous just a few years ago. Hotels serve as your home away from home while on vacation, it’s the place where you can do everything you’d do at home. You smoke at home, why shouldn’t you smoke in your hotel room?

Unfortunately, some hotel chains decided to ban smoking, with little thought given to how it would affect the smokers. These hotels probably didn’t even realize it was a problem, since smokers are now the minority. There’s a difference between hotels with smoking rooms and hotels without smoking allowed and both are damaging to smokers.

Take for example the hotels that still allow smoking. They do this by setting aside a block of rooms and designating those rooms for smokers. The rooms are still cleaned in the same way as non-smoking rooms, including changing the bed linens, spraying disinfectant and using air freshener. By the time the hotel staff is done, you’d be hard pressed to guess that a smoker was once there.

Yet look outside the window and you’ll likely see why it’s a smoking room. These rooms generally have a poor view, usually of the parking lot, a neighboring building or even a brick wall. Non-smokers typically have access to the best rooms and the best views, while smokers feel cheated.

Then you have the hotels that ban smoking altogether. Instead of sitting back at the end of the day, with a cigarette before bed, you have to go outside and smoke by the front door or in another designated smoking spot. After all, you wouldn’t want to offend any potential guests with your cigarette smoke! When you find yourself in the Midwest or any other area with cold winter temperatures, snow and ice, you know what a problem smoking outside is.

The other problem is when the hotel makes you smoke 10-20 feet from the building. What if you’re in a bad neighborhood and forced to stand outside at night to smoke? There’s no telling what risks you face from people just walking by and yet the hotels still don’t care. Maybe they’ll start caring one day, when someone launches a lawsuit for this very reason.

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