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

Just ran across this article here.

I'm really getting tired of being told what I can or can't do when I'm spending my hard earned money. I've been a smoker for many years and don't claim ignorance about all of dangers smoking brings. I have never inflicted my smoking on others and go out of my way to avoid smoking near anyone that is a non smoker. Even before restaurants were smoke free, I would excuse myself from the table and go elsewhere, usually outside, to smoke.

I don't ask permission to smoke in someone's house (I simply excuse myself to go outside) or car ( I wait) unless I know that they are also smokers. Even then, I wait until they light up first before assuming that I may.

I didn't mind when they created smaller and smaller smoking sections in restaurants and accepted it when restaurants and public buildings became smoke free (Though I find it pretty dumb that open air football stadiums are smoke free environments.)

I can even put up with smoke free flights.

But this is way beyond what I am willing to accept. I see no reason for this move by Marriott other than to play Big Brother and to play up to the virulent anti-smoking crowd.

Marriott has always been one of my preferred hotel chains when traveling, whether it be their Courtyard chain or Fairfield Inns or even the flagship Marriott brand. Needless to say, they will not be earning another red cent of my money.

As someone not particularly "anti-smoking" but also as someone that can smell the smell coming from the car 50 feet ahead, I'm going to go with, Yeh! on this one.

I grew up in a family of three packers unfiltered a day. I grew up with the associated respiratory problems, the coughing up blood, the scars on my throat, the whole shibang. It took years away from it before I started to realize it wasn't normal to have hacking bright dayglow reddish-yellow mucas draining out of my sinus for the sole crime of turning over in bed.

I might add that my Ma quit smoking, very suddenly. You understand what I'm saying, right? She's hanging in there and says nothing. Has never said a thing or made a single complaint. She understands why. She still doesn't really comprehend the effects her habit had on the child and the child doesn't bring it up. Life's too short.

Still? A couple sigs a day? I don't see the harm if that's possible but as someone no longer surrounded by the smoke, whose sinuses cleared after decades and who now realizes there are wonderful smells in the daily world that were completely missed as a child please take this on faith; the smell lingers. The consideration you and other considerates show matters and is appreciated but it's not possible to never inflict smoking on others. It's that strong.

Why they don't make a cigarette that has less smell? I don't know. I have trouble believing it can't be done so there must be some reason it isn't done.

I suspect this is a business decision more than a consideration issue. Cleaning the rooms of smell has to be expensive as is separating into smoking and non-smoking.

Eh, there's always the Motel 6?

I have to say I support Marriott's move, and not just because I'm an employee. I don't begrudge anyone wanting to do whatever with their bodies (I'll never lay off the caffiene no matter what the state of Moroni tries to tell me) but I watched my family fall apart when I was only eight because of smoking. I won't go into the details but I will say because of what I saw I've never, and never will, pick up any tobacco product. Won't even buy it for a friend or family member.

And, unfortuately for those who swear off Marriott as Vee proposes to do, you'll be looking at only places like Motel 6 or Super 8. All major hotel companies are jumping on this. Marriott wasn't even the first. There are other announcements in the works (can't say more because of work policies) from the major players besides Marriott.

Just curious...do they really believe that smokers will not smoke in their rooms? I won't because I won't give them my money but I suspect that 99% will just ignore the policy and smoke anyway.

They don't. And I know you wouldn't, even if you did chose to keep staying, but those who do will get hit with a hefty fine. Since Marriott requires a credit card for all stays if a member of the cleaning staff reports smoking activity after a guest checks out they will be charged for cleaning. I think we were told the minimum would be $250 and it can go way up from that. Guests won't have recourse either since all this will be added to the small print at registration.

The phone reps that work at my center are already taking a lot of calls over this and it is one of the first times that management has had to come up with a script for them to read in response to a particular situation.

I'll take this as proof that this is mostly driven by PR than any real concern for health issues. If I'm mistaken, next they should be closing all the hotel bars and removing the mini bars from all the rooms because alcohol is also a killer. And they'll have to eliminate all those "all you can eat" buffetts and replace them with fruits and juice only offerings while getting rid of all of their menu offerings that include any non organic foods, or shellfish, or nuts or....

But they won't because these are cash cows for them after all so the heck with health concerns here.

To be honest, I'm kind of split on this.

On one hand, I don't smoke and I don't like to be around smoke. One of the reasons that I literally hate going home to visit my family at Christmas is because my sister and brother smoke and my mother doesn't require them to go outside when they do smoke. I almost never feel good while I'm there and when I get home I have to wash everything I wore or brought with me to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke.

That being said, I do think that too many people use "health" concerns as an excuse to dictate how other people should live their lives.

Now that smoking is virtually a pariah activity, they've started going after such things as fast food and sodas. Since there's not a direct impact on other people from those things they argue that we all pay increased medical expenses due to the health insurance costs of treating people who are obese.

When does it end? If by some miracle they ban McDonalds and Coke, they'll be after people who eat red meat like steak or don't exercise ...

We're turning into a nation of busybodies.

I just stayed at a Hyatt and there was a sign warning about$250 charge if I smoked - but that was in a non-smoking room. I'm surprised the big hotels don't just keep a number of smoking rooms and charge a bit more (surely not $250?) to do the extra cleaning on an occasional basis (weekly? monthly?). Or perhaps the ventilation systems are too inter-connected to isolate some rooms? There is an airline now offering smoking flights, so maybe a hotel chain with smoking permitted will emerge to satisfy the marketplace.

I suspect it was driven mostly by the pressure from the insurance industry more then anything else. The bottom line with big business is ultimately financial, and this is the trend the insurance carriers are forcing them to go with.

I once read an article that was written in the early 1980's as a satire of the times and was well written but quite tongue in cheek. It was about a man and wife who smoked and were being hunted down by the anti-smoking police. The story was being told by entries from their journals as they camped out in the wilderness and tried to survive and stay one step ahead of the authorities. In the story cigarettes were like individual sticks of gold because they were so illegal, and smokers were enjoying their last smoke then committing suicide. The couple got hold of a whole carton of cigarettes then set out into the wilds of Colorado to try to smoke them before being captured.

When I read this article, I remember how the people in my office laughed and laughed at how improbable it was. At the time I worked for Salt Lake County Personnel, a local government entity, and employees could smoke at their desks, and in the bathrooms, and in the breakrooms, and in the lunchroom. At that time there wasn't even a requirement that you step outside to smoke, and this was even Mormon land. Look how much times have changed in 20 years.

Makes you wonder how much they will change again in another 20 years. By that time we may not have anything with peanuts in it, as that seems to be a hot-button issue. Look at all the labeling making sure people know what things contain peanuts and what things are produced in plants where peanuts have been processed. If this happens, I know that I will be on the run with Scott, carrying a backpack filled with jars of illegal Skippy Creamy and the Ritz crackers and Hershey bars he loves to smear it on.......

I've got to support Marriott, etc 100% on this. I've got asthma, and before the smoking ban came in here [Scotland] a couple of months back, I couldn't go out to anywhere that didn't ban it. Smoke in the air around me causes me, at best, to break down in a coughing fit - and often to suffer a full-blown asthma attack.

It's not just about the smell, or even the long-term effects on those exposed...

I'm with Vee on this. The anti-smoking propaganda is approaching hysteria. I honestly feel there is some force behind it making some kind of profit...it really doesn't feel benevolent to me at all.

I suggest everyone watch 'Thank You for Smoking'. GREAT movie.

I'm so sick of people shoving it down my throat that ciggerettes are bad that I've considered actually starting to smoke. I can see myself with Scott & Caroline in twenty years, hiding in the woods because I accidently carried a pound of shrimp across the border b/t Rhode Island and Connecticut (*choke* by then I won't be the 'young firecracker' anymore).

As Reboot and I both posted at the same time, I jsut read his post and then mine, and don't like the way they flow

I also believe in everyone doing everything they can to limit the effects of non-smokers on smokers. I don't believe that's mutually exclusive to a policy-wide smoking ban.

Fundamentally, it's a binary subject - yes or no, can or cannot. From personal experience, it's either a ban, or it's not.

This has been playing at Brewvies for a month now. But I have to admit Caroline and I skipped it to watch Nacho Libre instead on Sunday.

All of Marriott's domestic (North America) properties are already 90% or more non-smoking rooms.

I was initially appalled when NY state banned smoking from bars; but a coupel of years later, the bars are doing fine, and I don't come home smelling like an ash-tray.

I'm a non-smoker, but not a rabid one. I generally support the rights of contientious smokers (as per Vee's initial description), but when a decision has to be made regarding public space, it must be made on the side of health.

complete bans in outdoor football stadiums? tooo far.
a hotel chain? well, that's their decision to make, as a private company. if it comes as an insurance-industry mandate, I oppose it, but if it's a legit internal decision by Marriott, it's their call, and its' smokers' call to show their consumer support for a competitor.

PS - I don't buy the booze/health food analogy; second-hand smoke has no accruately-corresponding direct effect. (Yes, I can hear the rebuttals, but all these examples are indirect effects; the act of drinking does not waft across a room the way smoke does)

But drunk people do climb behind the wheels of cars.

Just playing devil's advocate here, I'm actually quite torn on this subject.

But it's illegal for drunk people to climb into cars thus endangering others, as is now being done with second hand smoke. The analogy to the separate smoking sections, would be building two parallel road networks. One where drunk drivers are allowed and the other where they are banned.

Given the more dangersous nature of working on the 'open alcohol allowed in the drivers seat' roads workers exposed to that network would need to get special training/ safety gear and possible higher pay and sign consent forms under most occupational health safety regimes.

Given the known danger of second hand smoke, it wouldn't be unreasonable if I was a worker to demand regular lung cancer monitoring programs as part of my benefits package, would it?

I have seen ads that the Westin hotels are/will be 100% smoke-free.

I am also one of those who can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke and try to avoid it.

One thing I will say, I wish large buildings could set aside special smoking rooms. I hate having to walk through the cloud of smoke that surrounds the entrances of buildings. And a plus for the smokers is that they don't have to deal with the weather while getting their "breath of fresh air".

Marriott is completely entitled to put this kind of condition on the use of their property. It's clearly coming from their bowing to politically-correct pressure, though, more than insurance and liability issues, as the number and proportion of smokers have sharply diminished over the past 40 years.

I wonder what the next move will be. Will the anti-obesity crusaders insist on hotels not dealing with customers who are over the approved weights for their heights, according to some government-sanctioned table? Lest they risk damaging the beds in the rooms?

Yeah if they're in danger of dropping through the floor and hurting a guest below.

Not sure you're anology follows? This is about a habit that intrudes significantly (as society dictates) on others, whether for health or comfort reasons. Maybe obese people on airlines might be a closer analogy or high fiber people in hotel rooms. I've long been for separate farting sections in restaurants.

Gotta say I support the ban on smoking at hotels as well. My wife has asthma, and I see what it does to her when we get a supposed "non smoking" room... just to walk into that horrible smell...(in my opinion anyway).

However, I would never agree on taking away someone's right to smoke... smoke all you want.. just not around me and my family, and anyone else who chooses not to be around it, cuz that's kinda taking away my right to clean air.

That's my 2 cents anyway, even though being Mormon now, I would have agreed with this way before I joined LDS.

Wow, interesting topic.

I am a smoker, but I'm really the most anti-smoking smoker you'll ever meet.

If I could change only one of the mistakes I've made through the years, the one thing I would change would be I would never have picked up a cigarette.

I smoke cigars, and i try not to "inflict" them on others. As to the ban, Marriot can kiss my money good bye.

I realize that some folks actually have asthma (sp?), and that some folks don't like it, but...

the insurance industry is quietly rulling this country with an iron fist.

"Wear a seat belt or we fine you because the insurance company says so. Don't smoke because the insurance company says so. Take these tests when you apply for a job to tell us whether you have a genetic propensity for a certain disease, if you do, sorry, we cant hire you. The cost on our insurance carrier would be too high.

Fast food, YOU ARE NEXT!"

Ralph Nader started this crap with the Beetle. Poor people knew that the cars weren't the best in the world, but they were reliable when new. Instead, Nader killed it and then poor people had to drive unsafe cars because they were the only ones they could afford. They were often unreliable and cost more than one poor person their jobs.

The insurance industry watched all this, jumped on it, and now they are the real rulers of this country. Dont' believe it, try to buy a house without insurance, a car, get a loan for a business...the list goes on and on.

so, Marriot, and the insurance companies, can kiss my @$$. If i have to stay in one, i'll pay cash. Lettem try to bill that.

Heh. I like Rick's cash idea. Vee, do that and "stick it to the man"!

Won't work. Like I said before, you have to give a credit card to stay. Most hotel chains now days require a credit card for "additional charges".