HOTELS / TOURISM

Some guests at the Emerald of Anaheim won’t find a single matchbook or ashtray in their rooms. But they probably won’t complain.

The 510-room hotel across from Disneyland recently converted about 150 rooms--30% of its total--to non-smoking rooms. That makes four of the Emerald’s 15 floors entirely smoke free.

While the Emerald isn’t the first or the only Orange County hotel to ban smoking in designated areas, it has the most smokeless rooms by a wide margin. Only 129 rooms at the 1,577-room Anaheim Hilton are set aside for non-smokers. And the nearby Marriott has 160 smokeless rooms out of 1,042.

Why the Emerald’s big commitment? “We get several requests a day from people making reservations,” said Steele Edwards, general manager.

So the rooms were sterilized and completely cleaned, then marked inside with cards reading, “Room for non-smokers.” Guest compliance is based on the honor system.

So far, according to Steele, “There have been absolutely no complaints, no problems.”