Airport May Ban Smoking : Burbank: The proposal is aimed at all terminal areas except bars and restaurants. The action was urged by both airline representatives and passengers.

Burbank Airport officials are considering joining a growing number of airports throughout the country that have banned smoking in all terminal areas except for bars and restaurants.

The proposed smoking ban was suggested by airline representatives and passengers who complained about long, narrow waiting areas where smoke from a designated smoking area stagnates and floats across to the nonsmoking area.

“Staff and some other people involved in the airport realized when you come in off of some of those planes, the density of smoke fumes is significant,” Airport Commissioner Carl Meseck said Wednesday.

Meseck is a member of the airport authority’s operations committee, which last month ordered staff to study the possibility of adopting a smoking ban and then submit a recommendation to the entire authority sometime next month.

The airport allows smoking only in designated areas throughout the terminal. But in some locations, smoking areas and nonsmoking areas are separated only by a row of seats and distinguished only by ashtrays in the aisles and signs on the walls.

Nancy Cloud, a Delta Airlines manager at Burbank Airport and a smoker, said she and a manager for Alaska Airlines recommended the smoking ban because it is virtually impossible for nonsmokers in the terminal to avoid breathing so-called “secondhand smoke” while waiting for a flight.

Although she likes to light up at work, Cloud said she is going to have to get used to leaving the building to have a smoke. “I don’t like it, but I have no choice,” she said.

If the smoking ban is adopted, the Burbank Airport will join many airports across the country that have done the same, including John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Long Beach Airport, San Francisco International Airport and Albuquerque Airport in New Mexico.

Los Angeles International Airport allows smoking in designated areas throughout the terminals.

Kevin Goebel, manager of legislative programs for the group Americans for Non-Smokers Rights in Berkeley, said many airports began banning smoking during the past two years, but he said he did not have the exact number.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “It’s critical not only to protect passengers but also employees from secondhand smoke.”

Randy Berg, deputy director of the Burbank Airport, said airport staff members are considering conducting a poll of passengers before making a recommendation to the airport authority.

The smoking ban idea drew a mixed response from smoking and nonsmoking passengers waiting for flights at the airport Wednesday.

“I think it sucks, totally, to the max,” Ray Navarro, an auto dealership president, said as he puffed on a cigarette while waiting for his flight to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which has already banned smoking.

Because smoking is banned on many flights and in some taxicabs, Navarro said he sometimes feels like a second-class citizen. “I respect the space of nonsmokers, but a smoker needs his space too.”

Not every smoking passenger thought a ban on smoking is a drag.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Terry Thomson, a resident of Oakland, said as she finished a cigarette while waiting for her flight to Sacramento Airport, which has also banned smoking. She said she can do without a puff while at the airport. “It’s no big deal,” she said.

Nick Lengyel, a Las Vegas resident who was in the area on business, said he would not oppose a smoking ban. “The more nonsmoking areas there are, the less I smoke,” he said.

Louie Moses, a nonsmoking passenger, said he supports smoking bans at the airports because his job in an advertising firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., requires him to fly often and therefore to spend a lot of time in airports.