smoking

Smoking lounges at airports not going away

Lucky Stirke smoking

Smoking is still allowed in specific areas at the five major U.S. airports detailed in a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed air pollution levels that are significantly higher than those at non-smoking airports.

One of the airports — Denver International — did snuff three of its four smoking areas in 2012. Smokin’ Bear Lodge Smoking Lounge is the last place where travelers moving through the airport can light up.

“We are happy about that,” said Karen Phelan of the Colordato Department of Public Heath and Environment.“Because even non-smokers who go near the smoking lounges are exposed to secondhand smoke and even a brief exposure to second hand smoke can trigger a heart attack. So this protects everyone.”

The CDC report found air pollution levels from secondhand smoke directly outside designated airport smoking areas were five times higher than levels in smoke-free airports. The CDC examined areas at Denver International, Hartsfield-Jackson (Atlanta), Washington Dulles, McCarran International (Las Vegas) and Salt Lake City International.

“In general, smoking is limited to a handful of hub airports,” said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights. “The list is pretty small. Ten years ago, smoke-free airports were something of an anomaly.”

Besides Denver International, the other airports included in the CDC study have do not have plans to kick the smoking-lounge habit.

“A sizable portion of our airports uses smoke,” said McCarran International Spokperson Christine Crews. “And providing these customers with enclosed areas offers several benefits to non-smokers.” For example, she said, smoking areas inside the airport act as a deterrent to smokers who might light up in non-smoking areas, such as companion care restrooms or near building entrances.

At Dulles, smoking rooms compliant with state and local building codes are offered “as a courtesy because there is no access to the outdoors for passengers in our midfield concourses,” said Kimberly Gibbs, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Nearby Washington National is now smoke-free, Frick notes.

There’s a smoking lounge on each of the five concourses at Salt Lake City International. Additional fans were recently added to one of the lounges and doors were added to the rooms, said airport spokesperson Barbara Gann, but there are no plans to eliminate the rooms.

And at Hartsfield-Jackson, the nation’s busiest airport, improvements to the six smoking lounges were part of a recent concourse cosmetic upgrade project. “We’ve found that if authorized smoking areas are not provided, some passengers – especially those smokers who have just ended long international flights – find unauthorized places to smoke,” said airport spokesperson Myrna White.

Click here to see the smoking policies of the nation’s 35 busiest airports.

“Speaking up for smoke-free airports is important,” Frick said. “The report from the CDC affirms that smoking rooms, smoking sections and ventilation systems do not protect people from the health hazards of secondhand smoke.”

(Photo: George Eastman House, via Flickr, The Commons)

My story about airport smoking lounges first appeared on NBC News.com.

Denver Airport deletes smoking lounges

LUCKY STRIKE, GIRL IN RED

Denver International Airport is making good on its plan to close down the smoking lounges.

Since May, when the city’s mayor held a press conference to announce the plan, three of the four smoking lounges at the Denver airport have closed. The fourth lounge, Timberline, located on on Concourse C, will shut down when its lease expires in 2018.

The lounges that closed this past year include two Aviator’s Lounge locations (one was in the Jeppesen Terminal; the other was on the B Concourse. The Jeppesen Terminal lounge will become a Jamba Juice, the B Concourse lounge will re-open as the barbecue restaurant called the Aviator’s Sports Bar and the third lounge, which is located inside of Mesa Verde Restaurant and Bar on the A Concourse, was remodeled.

Here’s a link to other airports that are smoke-free.

Smoking at the airport? Good luck with that.

Want to light up a cigarette before or after your next flight? Good luck with that.

 

According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, indoor smoking is completely banned at 27 of the 35 busiest U.S. airports.

Soon it will be 28. Well, make that 27 and 3/4.

Denver International Airport, currently the only public building in Colorado where indoor smoking lounges are still legal, is on its way to becoming smoke-free.

At a May 18th airport press conference, Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock announced that lease-holders for three of the four smoking lounges at Denver airport have agreed to shutter those lounges by the end of this year and remodel or replace them with non-smoking concessions.

The Aviators’ Lounge in the Jeppesen Terminal will become a branch of Jamba Juice; the lounge on the B Concourse will become a barbecue restaurant called the Aviator’s Sports Bar; and the Mesa Verde Restaurant and Bar on the A Concourse will be remodeled, removing its smoking area.

The fourth lounge, inside Timberline Steaks & Grill on Concourse C, will not shut down until after its lease expires in 2018, but Hancock said his goal “is to get it to shut down sooner than later,” so that Denver Airport can “join the ranks of Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, San Francisco International Airport and many other major U.S. airports who have eliminated smoking in the past few years.”

While Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) issued a statement applauding Denver’s mayor, the airport and “the owners of the smoke-filled businesses who are supporting this transition to a smoke-free future,” the response on the airport’s Facebook page has been mixed, with several critical comments among those voices applauding the decision.

Via e-mail, M. James of Denver speaks out for smoking travelers: “I just think this anti-smoking has gotten too far. There are tons of restaurants where people can eat without smoke. At least one smoking area at DIA should be open for the smokers who have a layover or a delayed plane.”

James mourned the demise of Denver Airport’s smoking lounges, but expressed appreciation for those at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, which are located throughout the airport and include a new one (on the Concourse F mezzanine level) in the recently opened international terminal complex.

In addition to Atlanta, smokers can still find an indoor place to light up at Dulles International Airport and at airports in Tampa, Memphis, Salt Lake City and several other cities. Some of these smoking areas are simply small, ventilated spaces; others are inside a restaurant or bar that may require a minimum purchase.

At Memphis International Airport, for example, the smoking area is inside the post-security Blue Note Café; at Tampa International Airport, there’s an outdoor smoking patio at the Landside Terminal and caged, outdoor smoking patios at Airsides A, C, E and F.

In Las Vegas, McCarran International Airport currently has two indoor spots where passengers may smoke: the pre-security Budweiser Racing Track Lounge and an enclosed casino gaming lounge at the D Concourse, near Gate D-46.

When McCarran’s new Terminal 3 opens, on June 27, there will be two more enclosed gaming lounges, near gates E-1 and E-15. Another gaming lounge that will welcome smokers is planned for the C Concourse, just past the C Annex Security Checkpoint, and will be available to passengers who walk over from the A and B concourses as well. No date has been set yet for the opening of that Concourse C lounge.

Why add more airport smoking lounges at McCarran when Denver International Airport is getting kudos for its plan to close theirs?

“There is a significant segment of our customer base that wishes to smoke, and past experience has demonstrated that these customers will often light up, even in areas where smoking is not authorized,” says McCarran spokesperson Chris Jones. He adds that ‘unauthorized’ smokers cause problems, such as “smoke in public restrooms or, in some cases, alarms being set off as individuals attempt to open doors that lead to secured outdoor areas.” said Jones.

“The gaming lounges help to alleviate these concerns by providing separate, enclosed and ventilated spaces for these adults to smoke prior to their outbound flights,” he said.

Not all smokers are in favor of smoking rooms at airports. Patricia Murphy, a smoker from Seattle, says “Shut them down!” She said the last time she smoked in one of those rooms – at Tokyo’s Narita Airport – she felt sick for hours. “No ventilation system can handle the amount of smoke in those rooms. They smell so awful!”

Murphy says she tries to have a cigarette before heading into an airport and often finds herself smoking just outside airport doorways, getting “lots of dirty looks.”

She has found one airport smoking lounge she can recommend: The one at Singapore’s Changi Airport, which is outside, in a sunflower garden. “You’re literally standing in towering sunflowers,” said Murphy.

(My story:  No butts about it: Fewer airports allow smoking, first appeared on USATODAY.com.)

 

 

Woman smokes & strips at Denver Airport

A woman caught smoking in a nonsmoking area of Denver International Airport on Tuesday responded by putting out her cigarette and taking off her clothes.

Around 8:45 a.m., after being asked to extinguish her cigarette, the woman stripped naked in the B Concourse.

“The woman told officers that she’d had no sleep the night before,” said Raquel Lopez, spokesperson for the Denver Police Department.

The woman was taken in for a medical evaluation. “No one was arrested, no one was hurt and no report was filed,” Lopez said.

Police and paramedics responded and “the woman was ultimately transported to a local hospital,” said Laura Coale, Denver International’s director of media relations.

There are four smoking lounges at Denver International airport, including two Aviator’s Club Smoking Lounge locations, but there is no clothing-optional area, Coale said, nor are there plans to create one anytime soon.

(A slightly different version of this story originally appeared msnbc.com.)

Cigars and pashimas at the airport

I spent the day walking the aisles of the exhibition hall at the annual conference of  ACI-NA: Airports Council International – North America, being held this week in Pittsburgh.

I’ll be writing a column for USA TODAY on some of the intriguing services and amenities on the horizon for travelers, but wanted to share a few tidbits from the day.

The folks from the upscale Graycliff Cigar Company have set up two cigar lounges at Nashville International Airport and are in talks to expand the idea to several other airports.  The company, which also markets gourmet coffee and fancy watches, has a cigar maker on duty here making cigars from several kinds of tobacco.

Graycliff cigar maker at ACI-NA

Graycliff cigar maker at ACI-NA

And here’s a factoid I learned today:

Airport shops run by the Hudson Group sell more than 100,000 rayon, Pashima-style scarves a year.

Pashima scarves at ACI

Laura Samuels of the Hudson Group with scarves

More tomorrow….