Hotels are starting to to hit smokers with hefty fines for violating their no smoking policies. Take Dan Cole. He didn’t light up in his non-smoking Marriott room, honest. Those butts in his garbage can? Um, he smoked them somewhere else and threw them out in the room?
It costs Marriott over $1,000 to scrub the smoke-stink off a room, a charge they happily offset by smacking smokers like Dan with a $250 fine.
Some hotels seek out actual physical evidence before they levy a fine. The New York Marriott Downtown first started charging people $250 for simply leaving the smell of smoke in their rooms after the brand went 100% nonsmoking in Sept. 2006. Within a few weeks, they realized they had too many complaints, says Anna Cervenyak, the hotel’s office manager. Security started taking pictures of butts or ashes when housekeeping found them. Though they still make “plenty” of refunds, they now show people physical evidence, which usually is enough to draw a confession, Ms. Cervenyak says.
Physical evidence also plays a role when a guest tries to protest against the charge through a credit-card company. Sam Patel, who owns the Quality Inn Brick Town in Oklahoma City, says, “A lot of times you have to argue with the credit-card company” to have a smoking charge accepted. “If you don’t find a cigarette,” he says, the charge will not go through, and “we lose money.” he says.
At least one hotel gives employees an incentive to catch illicit smokers: Swissotel Chicago awards housekeepers a $10 bonus for every smoker they catch.
Lingering smoke-stench can cause a nasty unwanted sore throat for sensitive folks like us—not a perk you want when paying for a room. We’d be glad to see no smoking violators strapped to plane wings and sent through hail storms, but we’ve been told to work on our sensitivity issues. We’re willing to accept that select others might think differently, which is why we have comments.
Where were we?
Right, smoking in hotel rooms.
Please don’t.
Now at Hotels: The $250 Cigarette [WSJ]
(Photo: Getty)
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@cde: You didn’t mean it as slang for cigarette. You meant it as an insult. More than once. Grow up.
@timsgm1418: Actually, it’s a lot more than “just a word.” It’s a nasty, vile insult, intended not for just one person but a whole group of people. Just because it’s common on playgrounds does not legitimize it. Like you, I didn’t know what a lot of slurs meant when I first heard them because my family never used them. And when I did learn them what they were and what they meant, I STILL never used them.
But I did learn a lot about the people who use those words.
————–
On topic: I think people who smoke in non-smoking rooms are arrogant jerks. If you want a smoking room, go to a hotel that allows smoking — let the marketplace decide. I’ve been in too many rooms that are non-smoking that reeked of smoke. For me, it’s a comfort thing. I also don’t go to bars or clubs where they smoke, and avoid it at other places. I think people should be allowed to smoke in their own cars and homes, and places designated for it.
It’s more than a health issue– it’s a courtesy and politeness issue.
Smoking in areas designated non-smoking is a lot like peeing in a pool. You shouldn’t do it, even if you can get away with it.
@RvLeshrac: If I eat meat, it doesn’t cause harm to a vegetarian at the same table. Chances are they can’t even smell it. Smoke however IS dangerous and DOES stink up everything. In other words, a meat-eater isn’t causing harm to those nearby, while the smoker is.
“Your right to swing a punch ends where my nose begins” as they say.
@Antediluvian: So I can’t use a word outside of its normal, intended use? So calling you a tool, a robot, a lemming, a slug, or anything like that wouldn’t be an insult.
And where did I use it more then once?
@cde: Wow, I’m impressed that you actually read my comment.
Obviously you didn’t understand it, but hey, it’s important to start somewhere, right?
Oh man, how did I miss this one?
Okay, you got me.
I fed the troll. My bad, folks! Sorry ’bout that.
@Antediluvian: Also, so people shouldn’t use fag as in cigarette, or faghag, or black people shouldn’t use nigger or nigga, or spanish people spic, or bitch, or “the gays” shouldn’t call each other fag either?
@Buran: If your streak doesn’t smell enough like steak to someone at the same table, you need to go to a better restaurant.
wow people. wow. that is all.
I have a very severe reaction to Febreze. It very much interests me that people who claim to have a violent reaction to cigarette smoke are often found dancing in a mist of Febreze hailing its refreshing renewal properties.
Either way, when I’m in a room that’s been Febrezed or near somebody who has sprayed those chemicals all over their clothes, I develop an instant sore throat and can feel it start to close as I sneeze and hack like crazy. When I’m around a smoker? Nothing, curiously.
Can I get my No-Febreze room?
@bdgbill: you suck. though i certainly can understand the desire to have a room that isn’t shitty.
@gyroball: if it wasn’t for the legislation, there would be no bars that were smoke free. hooray madison and chicago (and the other smoke free states/cities that i haven’t lived in)
@RvLeshrac: I’m with you on perfumes and some of your other annoyances being, well, annoying.
However, I think you’re misunderstanding. I never said to ban smoking. I have no problem with smokers smoking where it is allowed and in/on their own property. As others have said, if a business wants to fine someone for breaking a no-smoking rule, that is their policy. Que the “your rights end at…” line.
@taylorich: I don’t think people are saying all smokers should die. The smokers drawing ire are those who WILLFULLY and purposefully smoke in non-smoking rooms for various reasons.
@sketchy:
[www.surgeongeneral.gov]
@doctor_cos: Find me a bottle of perfume with dozens of carcinogens, and I’ll agree that it should be banned from my personal space.
(ex-smoker)
@nardo218: Totally. I once worked about 4′ away from a guy who showed up every day smelling like urine–his cat had “sprayed” in his shoes. Supervisors talked to him about it, but he felt that since he had run the shoes through the wash and the smell wouldn’t come out, he’d done his part and that was that. Nevermind actually buying new shoes at one of the city’s many fine thrift stores. There were so many complaints he actually got fired for it–NOT the people who were sick of the smell.
The hotel has to pay to clean the smell out of all of the fabrics in the room: carpet cleaning, curtains, and seating with fabric sections, maybe even the mattress.
If you smoke in a non-smoking room the fee is fair. The hotel should be sure the person did smoke in the room: if the person’s clothes just carried the smoke smell in the room then the carpet and curtains shouldn’t smell of smoke.
I also meant to ask:
200+ comments?
Buy a spray bottle of Fabreze at the nearest convenience store
@jpmoney: I still don’t wish them death, even if they blow smoke in my face.
I think this is a GOOD thing. Smokers should not smoke in non smoking rooms, smokers should not smoke OUTside their rooms and then bring the dirty butts into the NONsmoking rooms, and finally, SMOKERS WITH CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE SMOKING IN THE VICINITY OF THEIR KIDS! It’s about TIME this is made into a law! Little kids have NO choice in the matter, and 2nd hand smoke DOES contain cancer causing chemicals, not to mention its link to lung disease such as asthma.
Smoking MAY be a choice, but it’s a STUPID choice. Science has proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt, if common sense hadn’t already.
Oh, for crying out loud – walk outside and smoke. That’s what I do at HOME. Why are you smoking inside to start with? I don’t know about other smokers, but I cannot STAND the scent of lingering smoke in a room.
I’ll take my cancer slow and in nice, otherwise fresh air, thank you.
But then, I’m also the polite smoker who never drops her butts and always finds a way to throw it away if there’s no ashtray – and if there is, I put the cigarette out and then toss it.
So I’m probably unusual. :p
Teh awesome. I just wish they’d move faster, like when the jerk in the room below/new to you is smoking RIGHT NOW.
And nothing beats it when you open your patio door just to catch a nice lungful of POT smoke from the losers downstairs.
How about a fine, AND kicking them out (or throwing them over the balcony)? Is that too much to ask?