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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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U.S. Airports Urged to Go Smoke-free [02/28-3]
Excerpts from: Airports urged to go totally smoke-free
By Matt Leingang Cincinnati Enquirer [02/25/05]
The "no-smoking" sign on America's airlines lit up for good 15 years ago today.
And to mark the anniversary of the federal law that banned smoking on domestic airline flights, public health advocates are calling on airport authorities to ban smoking everywhere inside their facilities.
Many of the country's largest airports already restrict smoking to designated smoking lounges, but air inside these airports is still unhealthy, according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC says these smoking lounges - even if they have separate ventilation systems - don't contain all smoke. Many airports also lack regulations that keep smokers away from building entryways, creating an unhealthy zone that everyone coming and going must enter. And smoking is still allowed in some airport bars and restaurants.
The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport has eight smoking lounges and seven bars or restaurants that allow smoking.
"I smell smoke throughout the airport whenever I'm there," said Ahron Leichtman, director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition on Smoking and Health and a longtime critic of the airport's smoking policy. He flies several times a year.
The federal law requiring all U.S. domestic flights to be smoke-free took effect Feb. 25, 1990. It was a major achievement for flight attendants who spearheaded the movement and a defeat for tobacco companies that bitterly opposed it.
Since 2000, federal law has also required that all international flights to and from the United States be smoke-free.
Leichtman said the same protections ought to be extended to travelers and employees on the ground.
Short-term exposure to secondhand smoke, a carcinogen, can trigger eye irritations and breathing problems, especially for asthmatics, the CDC says. Long-term exposure has been linked to an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease.
But Cincinnati airport spokesman Ted Bushelman said the airport has no plans to abandon its smoking policy.
Nonsmokers are not bothered by the lounges since they obviously don't use them, Bushelman said. And he rarely gets a complaint from travelers or airport employees about secondhand smoke drifting from bars and restaurants into no-smoking public areas.
"We're all about customer service, and smokers have to be accommodated," Bushelman said, adding that foreigners who come from countries where smoking laws are more lax tend to be the biggest users of airport smoking lounges.
"It's the first thing they look for when they get off the plane," Bushelman said.
Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. gave the airport $225,000 to build two of its smoking lounges in 2000.
As far as bars and restaurants go, Bushelman said airport lease agreements stipulate that it's the responsibility of those businesses to keep smoke from drifting into public areas. "And they do a good job at that," he said.
However, some U.S. airports have gone smoke-free, mainly because they fall under city or state laws that ban smoking in all workplaces and public buildings. Examples are Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, San Francisco and Boston.
Smoking a cigarette Thursday at a Cincinnati airport smoking lounge, Cliff Smith said it wouldn't be fair if smokers were banished from their special rooms.
"We're holed up in here. Nonsmokers don't go near this place. What's the beef?" said Smith, 52, of Fairfield, a self-employed telecom electrician who does contract work for the airport.
Waiting to pick up a friend at the airport, Ann Miller of Montgomery, who quit smoking 16 years ago, agreed.
"I know that when I smoked, I wasn't always aware of when my smoke was offending others, but the designated smoking areas seem to take care of the problem," Miller said.
But smokers should take note that it's about to become more of a hassle to light up at U.S. airports. A new federal law, born out of homeland security concerns, will ban all cigarette lighters and matches beyond airport checkpoints beginning in mid-March.
That could, by default, reduce the prevalence of airport smoking. But not necessarily.
Cincinnati's airport is installing wall-mounted cigarette lighters - similar to those found in cars - at all of its smoking lounges at a total cost of about $3,600.
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