Smoking Was In at Kraft, but Only During the Great American Smokeout

They bent the no-smoking rules a bit at Kraft Inc. when the chief executive of the Philip Morris tobacco company dropped in.

New York-based Philip Morris, the nation’s biggest tobacco manufacturer, is acquiring Glenview-based Kraft for $13 billion. Kraft’s food-service headquarters are in this Chicago suburb.

Smoking is permitted in only a few designated areas and private offices at Kraft, but Philip Morris Chairman Hamish Maxwell--a pack-a-day smoker--apparently puffed freely during his visit Nov. 17, the day of the Great American Smokeout, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.

“Before Hamish got here, they took down a lot of the no-smoking signs, and ashtrays started popping out all over the place,” the newspaper quoted a source described only as a “well-placed smoker” as saying.

The newspaper said that Kraft has no intention of changing its policy toward smoking and that a Philip Morris spokesman it did not identify told John Richman, Kraft’s chief executive, that no changes will be sought.