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Smoking Scuffles Hit Travelers
The Travel Critic · February 15, 1999

These aren't the best of times for smokers who travel.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation declared all American air carriers completely smoke-free. Congress prohibited passengers from lighting up on domestic routes more than a decade ago, but Tower Air had still permitted smoking on international flights.

A few months earlier, the first non-smoking cruise ship, the Carnival Paradise, set sail. Passengers must sign an agreement to "refrain from smoking altogether while on board." Violators are fined $250 and get kicked off the boat at the next port of call.

And in early 1998, California banned smoking in bars and restaurants. Travelers on a layover at LAX can't take a cigarette break at the bar now - they have to head over to one of two special smoking areas. Other states are considering similar restrictions.

Smokers think the new rules stink. "Once I'm off that airplane and I have a connecting flight that spares me 20 minutes, I dash for the nearest smoking room," says Joanne Andes, a marketing representative from Chicago.

"Have you ever been in one of those? Well, in case you haven't, I can tell you this: they are nasty. It's a 10-by-13 glass room with the poorest ventilation on this earth. People walk by and say 'it's sick, gross, how could you go in there?'"

I've seen the smoking lounges, and I agree. The ceiling tiles are stained dark yellow. The ventilation is practically nonexistent. And the glass walls make the passengers inside look like animals on display in a zoo. It's totally dehumanizing.

Then again, I've been on the other side of the equation - the lone non-smoker on a train full of smokers. Or in the back of the plane, where every nervous passenger is puffing away with impunity while I can't breathe.

In Europe, where I've spent more than half of my life, smoking is regarded as a right and non-smokers are often viewed as extremists. I'd say that's more dehumanizing than the de facto smoking zoos at some airports.

In all fairness, our anti-smoking advocates can become overzealous from time to time. Not allowing smokers to light up anywhere near an airport just invites another case of air rage.

"I'll go along with the no-smoking rule on board flights," says Teresa Horstman, a technical writer from Columbus, Ohio. "I'll even go along with no-smoking areas in airports. But when we get to no-smoking airports, that's where I get a little testy."

Steven Gilbert, a music critic from Fresno, Calif., says the anti-smoking advocates went too far when his friend tried to light his pipe outside the commuter deck at San Francisco International Airport. "A bus driver drove by, scowled and wagged her finger. After he put out his pipe and went inside, he was accosted by security, interrogated and given a lecture," Gilbert remembers.

Maybe the anti-smoking forces are misdirecting their efforts. They should be concentrating on ending smoking where it counts: in hotel rooms and rental cars.

Let the smokers inhale their carcinogens outside and in their smoking cells at airports. This is still a free country. But for goodness sake, don't let them fire up their cancer sticks in a hotel room, where the odors saturate the bed, curtains, furniture, carpet, towels and sheets. No amount of washing will remove the smell. You wake up the next morning and you smell like smoke and your clothes smell like smoke. It's disgusting.

Cigarettes have no place in rental cars, either. Sit on the upholstery and you smell like smoke; grab the steering wheel and you smell like smoke; turn on the heater, out comes smoky air. Car rental companies try to cover the stench with sprays and solutions, but it just makes it worse. On a recent trip to Colorado, my rental car reeked of ginger and cigarettes. I had to keep the window open all the time.

When it comes to travel, smokers should be allowed to do whatever they want to - as long as it doesn't interfere with my right to breathe clean air, sleep in a clean bed, wear clean clothes or drive a car that doesn't smell like the smoking section in a Chinese restaurant.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.