Revised U.S. Rules Allow Smoking in Designated Areas of Buildings

The government issued revised rules Friday banning smoking in most areas of the nation’s 7,500 government buildings but allowing it in designated office areas, restrooms or lobbies.

The new government building regulations, effective Feb. 8, require local agency chiefs to divide their space into smoking and non-smoking areas, and to post signs where smoking is permitted.

Second-Hand Smoke Limits

Generally, open offices must be designated nonsmoking areas. Office space can be designated for smoking only if it can be “configured so as to limit the involuntary exposure of nonsmokers to second-hand smoke to a minimum,” according to the regulation.

Terence Golden, head of the General Services Administration, said the regulations can be adjusted if federal buildings have ventilation problems or few areas where workers can smoke.

Golden estimated that of the 2.3 million federal workers, 30% smoke.

Before implementing the new rules, agency officials must consult with employee unions, or deal directly with employees when there is no bargaining representative, he said.

Earlier federal rules banned smoking in auditoriums, classrooms, conference rooms, elevators, restrooms, lobbies, medical care facilities and libraries. The new rules basically keep those limits intact.

The Tobacco Institute said “apparently the burden shifts now to agency heads to take reasonable approaches in implementing these rules,” but accused the GSA of ignoring facts that show “tobacco smoke to be a rare element of air problems.”