Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Marriott goes 100% smoke free as of September

Realizing this is another topic altogether, but it's a sad day when cash money isn't good enough to pay for goods and services.

Now that's enough to keep my business away.

I'm totally with my pal Reboot here considering I have the exact same problem. Honestly I don't care if you want to damage your own lungs, get addicted, fritter your money away on cigs, but if you choose to inflict it on me and other people you don't get any sympathy from me. I can't even take a short walk these days without getting a whiff of smoke around my town. It's especially bad that people smoke right outside the doorways of businesses. Honestly I wouldn't mind if it was a law that everyone wear a Darth Vader-ish masked ventilation system so they could get the full force feedback of the drug wihout affecting others.

Unfortunately, I think this will only cause more of that not less. I insist on a smoking room, request it on every reservation I make and 90% of the time, when I get to my room, I discover that it is non-smoking. I then go downstairs and make them move me to another room but I suspect that most people just say "the hell with it" and smoke while they are there. If the hotel would bother to make sure the reservation was handled correctly, this would never be a problem and your wife would be assured of having a room that has not been smoked in, which she most certainly is entitled to have.

And I am more than happy to oblige, Doc (I know that wasn't directed at me ) but they are taking away my right to smoke by this move. In fact, they are taking away my right to take a vacation; travel on business; have a weekend getaway; or have emergency shelter if something happens to my house.

What I find most hypocritical however, is that this policy announced by Marriott is only for it's North American properties (if I read it correctly) I guess their concern for the health and well being of their customers and employees doesn't apply to Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America.

I completely sympathize, but how does the fact that I smoke inside my hotel room cause you any discomfort, unless you choose to come in? As I've said, I have no problem with most of the restrictions limiting my ability to smoke in public places, but this one crosses the line.

Because of the staff who have to deal with it.

Because a partial ban is an oxymoron - the third way never works. From experience, it's never as contained as suggested, and people (not talking about you, but a significant proportion) take advantage and people don't say anything to them.

Because it's not YOUR room, it's THEIR room which they permit you to use for a fee. In your own, owned, house, it's up to you.

Not quite.

And I totally sympathsize with you here Vee. I find it stupid that we (and not just Marriott does this unfortunately) treat smoking preferences as non-confirmable items. Even requesting non-smoking cannot be confirmed at reservation time.

Since the average hotel has less than 50 rooms available for smoking (avg. of 500 rooms per with 10% or less for smoking) there isn't any reason you can't confirm either smoking or non-smoking other than the fact they want the booking and would rather deal with you when you get there than not making the reservation at all.

I may work for them but it doesn't mean I agree with everything they do to make a buck.

The point that's so hard to get across, and I'm told that ex-smokers are the most radical about this, is that you can't NOT "inflict" the smoke on others. Some will always have alergies, perfume is a problem for some, but there's something about tobacco smoke that's just so much more pervasive.

I don't see how the action takes away anyone's "right" to a hotel room or a vacation or even to smoke. It does make it more inconvenient but many see this as righting a wrong, correcting something that never should have been.

It's a drastic change in lifestyle and takes some fun out of vacationing for smokers, I understand and sympathize, but there's just a bigger issue here. Whether it be the health reasons or the pervasiveness of the smell or the cigarette butts that litter the walks, it's a matter of manners that unfortunately so many of your fellow smokers don't get. I believe they brought this on you moreso than the insurance companies or the radical non-smokers.

This is a nice venting topic. It's a shame the inconvenience. Hooka's don't seem to have that same smell problem to me. They need more hooka's on street corners.

Ah hell, while I'm at it (you didn't hear this from me):

What is Marriott’s Smoke-Free Hotel Environment strategy?

According to Marriott’s Smoke-Free Hotel Environment strategy, all of the company’s lodging brands in the United States and Canada will become 100 percent smoke-free, with implementation beginning in September 2006. This represents the industry’s largest move to a non-smoking environment, with more than 2,300 hotels and corporate apartments and nearly 400,000 guest rooms under the Marriott, JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites and Marriott ExecuStay brands.

The new policy includes all guest rooms, restaurants, lounges, meeting rooms, public space and associate work areas. Currently more than 90 percent of Marriott guest rooms are already non-smoking and smoking is prohibited in many public spaces due to local laws. Demand for non-smoking rooms continues to rise with new information from the Surgeon General on the hazards of secondary smoke.

Why has Marriott made this decision?

The vast majority of requests of our guests favor a completely smoke-free hotel environment. The only way to provide this experience is to not allow smoking within the building. Therefore, we are extending this preference throughout all areas of the hotel. To accommodate the needs of guests who smoke, we will offer special designated smoking areas outside the building.

When will this take full effect?

Transitioning will begin immediately, with the full policy taking effect October 16, 2006.

Is this decision related to the June 2006 Surgeon General’s report?

The main impetus was our concern for the strong preference expressed by the vast majority of our guests for smoke-free environments. We also recognize the rising awareness of health concerns over secondhand smoke most recently articulated in the Surgeon General’s report.

Does this include your international hotels?

This program will be optional in our international properties at this time. We will continue to offer non-smoking guestrooms in all these hotels but will allow international properties to accommodate local cultures and preferences on allowing smoking within the hotel.


Are you doing anything to convert your properties to non-smoking?

All areas of our properties periodically undergo a thorough process to cleanse them from environmental pollutants, including smoke. We are announcing this decision in advance to allow properties time to complete that extensive cleaning in their smoking guest rooms as well as public areas.

What room renovations will take place?

Renovations are not required. However, all smoking rooms will go through an extensive cleaning process to include carpet, walls and draperies. This transition will start immediately and conclude by mid-October.

How will smokers be accommodated? Will they be able to smoke within the building?

While there will be no smoking areas within the building, smoking will be allowed outside in special designated areas. We will seek to accommodate guests as best as possible.

What will you do with existing reservations or guests already in your properties who are smoking?

Reservations with stays occurring between now and October 15, 2006, will be accommodated. We will continue to honor the room reservations and stays past October 15, but will not be able to accommodate a smoking preference. We will be contacting guests to convey this message.

Are you just following Westin's lead?

Westin’s decision was a consideration, but the main impetus was our concern for the strong preference expressed by the vast majority of our guests for smoke-free environments and the rising awareness of health concerns over secondhand smoke most recently articulated in the Surgeon General’s report.

Are you doing this out of concern for liability?

This direction reflects the strong preferences of the vast majority of our guests, who request non-smoking rooms. Therefore, we are extending this guest preference to the rest of the hotel.

What will we do with existing long-term guests?

Guests will not be allowed to smoke within the building after October 15, 2006. They will, however, be able to smoke in designated areas outside the building.

What measures will Marriott take to enforce this policy?

This policy will be part of our Quality Assurance process. We are training our associates to respond. For example, housekeepers will be taught to look out for signs of smoking in the hotel.

Guests will be reminded at the point of reservations and upon arrival that smoking is not allowed. Pre-arrival emails will also include a reference to the policy. There will be a significant room recovery fee for guests who do not comply in order to cover the extensive cost of restoring guest rooms to a smoke-free condition.

Will you accommodate your associates who smoke?

There will not be a smoking area within the building. As with our guests, smoking will be allowed outside the building.

Will you continue to employ smokers?

We currently have no employment policies (nor benefits) that exclude smokers.

Will the non-smoking policy apply at your corporate headquarters building?

This is currently under review.

Will your policy on smokeless tobacco change?

Smokeless tobacco presents no issues and will continue to be permitted.

Will you continue to sell tobacco in your retail operations?

We realize that some of our guests smoke and no change is planned at this time.

How will dedicated interior smoking spaces, such as cigar bars, be handled?

Currently dedicated interior smoking areas are under review for possible consideration for conversion or alteration. Interior smoking will not be permitted after October 15, 2006.

What does this mean for revenue and business?

This decision is designed to accommodate the preferences of the vast majority of our guests. We do not anticipate it will have a material detrimental impact on hotel revenue.

When should ALL rooms be non-smoking? Does this include banquets and events?

All smoking guest rooms will be converted to non-smoking by October 15, 2006, including for in-house guests. Public areas of the hotel, including banquets and events, will transition almost immediately.

How long will reservations for guaranteed smoking rooms be honored?

Guarantees for smoking rooms will be honored through October 15, 2006.

Is there an expectation that ALL properties will create a special outdoor smoking area?

Yes. We will provide special designated areas outside the building where smoking is permitted.

Kinda hedged their bets on that one didn't they.

Well, the corporate office is in Bethesda. Anyplace else, like SLC, the answer would be you already can't smoke inside the building. Bethesda must be one of the last holdouts where you can smoke in public.

The best way to keep me from "inflicting" the smoke on others is exactly the opposite of what they are doing. With this policy, I would now have to go downstairs and outside everytime I want to smoke a cigarette. Most hotels have the smoking area right by the front door outside the lobby. As others have posted, this is irritating to them as they walk past.

You must never have been a smoker (good for you) Keeping me from smoking in the comfort of my hotel room creates an unbearable situation, insures constant discomfort, makes me grumpy, anxious, and irritable along with all sorts of other nasty side effects. Would you pay to have someone force you to feel like that? No? Didn't think so. Smokers are addicted to cigarettes, it is not a fashion statement. Righting a wrong by wronging someone else is not right at all (Boy that's an awkward sentence )

You started your post by saying "The point is so hard to get across" but it appears that you get less of my point than you claim others don't get of yours. This is not "inconvenient" nor does it just "take some fun out of vacationing" If you really believe that than you don't understand the smokers situation at all. In effect, I would be forced to go through chemical withdrawl symptoms everytime I stay at a hotel. I can think of much more pleasant tortures to endure than that. So yes, I beg to differ, it does take away my right to be comfortable while staying in a hotel (of course, there is no such "right" that I know of, but that really applies to both sides of this argument.)

Funny to read some of those answers. They are concerned for my health and well being but will still sell me a pack of cigs for $4.50!

I don't know Vee. Mostly you just gave me several great ways to torture smokers. Clever new ways to torture override any natural tendancies towards sympathy I might have.

We'll just keep moving the smoking permitted barriers a few feet everyday until they all merge together in some nice corner of the city park. Someplace with a view so the smokers still feel they're getting good value for their tourist dollar.

Well at least you're not in Singapore where you have to hang an ashtray around your neck when smoking in public.

Vee, I definitely understand where you're coming from. I grew up in a house full of smokers, and I'm sure they feel the same way you do.

Alot of the problems with smoking in hotel rooms, is that the smell lingers long after a smoker has gone.

Most smokers don't notice it from my experience, but I've seen a few who quit who after some time has passes, realize how thick and strong that smell can be.

Spray all the febreeze ya want, but it's still there.

This reminds of a girl I dated when I was in High School. She was a smoker, and I knew that, thought it was no big deal. Until I kissed her...

The results were... well, just let me say I never dated another smoker again. Please, no offense is meant to anyone.. these are just my opinions...

And I think this is the first time I've agreed with anything Reboot has said....

Nuthin' but love for ya all...

Oh btw... did you know Marriot is owned by LDS members? lol

No offense taken Doc.

I do notice the difference between a smoking and non smoking room and that is exactly why I have always refused to stay in a non smoking room. Your wife is entitled to stay in a room in which there has been no smoking. I respect that. But now they are saying I can't stay there at all basically, because they will not provide even a minimal number of rooms which I can stay in and smoke.

I would even be willing to pay more for reservations in those rooms. I just object to being banned from these hotels for all intents and purposes.

What gripes me anew, upon reading Marriott's full policy above, is the bowing and scraping paid to a report created by an unelected bureaucrat.

Nothing is holy about the office of the Surgeon General. That person happens to be the one in charge of the public-health minions. It does not confer scientific or practical wisdom, or a superiority of his or her analyses above all others'.

The only force behind a Surgeon General's opinion is just that -- force. Warnings can be mandated and procedures required, ultimately at the point of a (usually figurative) gun.

If one reads the Articles of Faith of the LDS church, though, this obeisance to government on the part of Marriott is not at all surprising.

Oh, and the irony of Bethesda, Maryland? It's one of the few cities that has had the temerity to start regulating smoking on private residential property. (To prohibit smoke from going onto other houses' lots or into other apartments.) It's not the sanctuary you may think, Reboot.

Everyone knows that smokers are todays lepers.

Unlike real lepers, we all have a choice - if you chose to be continue being a leper then you deserve everything you get.

I for one don't want to be surrounded by someone elses smelly, stinking, cloying, carcinogenic smoke.
And why the **** should I?

BO and farts are bad enough - but they don't give you cancer nor do they hang around you until you wash all of your clothes and have a shower.

Think back to when you were young - just how DISGUSTING !!!!! was cigarette smoke.

Think about this morning - how much fun was it coughing up half a lung?

Peer pressure is a helluva thing to die for folks.
Are you really going to let those little white bastards rule your life?

Nothing personal you understand

and unfortunately, the coughing up half a lung thing doesn't come until too late.

Gramps didn't smoke: lived to 93 and was healthy and walking five miles a day until about 90. All his five kids smoked.

Lost the oldest Aunt to cancer
Lost the oldest Uncle to cancer
Lost the next Uncle to heart disease
Lost an Uncle who married in to cancer
Of the two youngest, my sole remaining Aunt and my previously mentioned Ma, both stopped smoking cold turkey. My Ma had already made the coughing step. My Dad still smokes and seems relatively unaffected (to my knowledge).

Many of us have all been around here quite some time from this board or previous.

How long until we start saying goodbye to friends for this? Personally Vee, I'd rather you have a few nightes squirming in a "clean" hotel room.

Okay. Time to take a breath here, folks.

The fact remains that however you feel about cigarettes, the choice to smoke is a lifestyle choice, as much as any other choice.

You know, there are plenty of people who spend an inordinate amount of time railing against certain lifestyle choices I have made, and as such, I'm going to stand in solidarity with my friend Vee and support his right to smoke. He's an adult, he's aware of the risks, and the prejudices involved.

I don't think we need to hear any more about how smokers are today's lepers, not when we have good friends who are smokers and who are posting on this board.

If Julio were to come into my house, he would not get a scolding look, a lecture, or a raised eyebrow. Do you know what he would get? An ashtray. Dealing with secondhand smoke for a few minutes is an acceptable risk for me in order to be hospitable to a good friend.

I also understand how asthmatics and others with respiratory health problems might have to act in a different way, and that's just fine.

As far as Marriott and other hotel chains, prohibiting smoking is of course their own business. I don't see any inherent goodness or badness in their decision. It's financially motivated, just like most business decisions.

Well, I'd be wrong to shed crocodile tears over that. There are already loads of things you can't do in your own private properties, from planting leylandii, to smoking all kinds of other drugs, to underage sex, to murder (notice there's a scale there - I'm not calling planting fast-growing hedges equivalent to murder!!!!). If you're prohibited from using cannabis, even for medical use, why should tobacco (which has no medicinal properties whatsoever when smoked) be any different, TBH?

*edit - didn't see KP's post above until after I'd already posted...*

Because pot is EEEEEEEVIL.

Actually murder on your property is becoming more and more legal. At least 17 states now have a law on the books that allow excessive force in protecting your private property. And gone are the days of having to prove the "intruder" meant you bodily harm. You only have to claim self defense in most of these places. Texas, of course, leads the way with the new revision.

:rolleyes: and simultaneously...