More smoking bans in the air

MORE countries, states, cities, hotels and rail services have recently moved to ban smoking. Among the recent changes:

* Disneyland will ban smoking at the Disneyland and Paradise Pier hotels, starting Wednesday. The third hotel at the Anaheim theme park, the Grand Californian, has been smoke-free since it opened in 2001.

“Very, very few guests request smoking rooms,” said Donn Walker, spokesman for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts in Burbank. Out of tens of thousands of reservations for the two hotels, for stays through 2010, only 35 had requested such rooms, he said last week.

* Westin Hotels & Resorts has barred smoking in all 77 of its hotels in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean since Jan. 1. The policy applies to guestrooms and public areas; smoking may be allowed in designated outdoor zones.

Westin, which claimed it was the first big hotel chain to go smoke-free, deep-cleaned 2,400 rooms for the changeover and replaced items such as air filters.

* The District of Columbia City Council voted last month to ban smoking at indoor work sites, bars and restaurants. The law, expected to take effect in January, doesn’t apply to the halls of the U.S. Congress.

* The Senate of Virginia voted Feb. 13 to ban smoking in most public spaces, including restaurants. The bill faced an uncertain future in the House of Delegates.

* Britain’s House of Commons voted Feb. 14 to ban smoking in pubs and clubs, Reuters news service reported. Passage was expected in the House of Lords. The ban would take effect in mid-2007. Ireland passed a similar law in 2004.

* Switzerland in December joined Belgium, Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden in banning smoking on the national rail network, officials said. Several other European rail systems restrict it, to varying degrees. In France, the high-speed TGV trains have been smoke-free since 2004.

Not everyone, of course, is on the anti-smoking bandwagon.

Disney hotels in Europe and Asia set aside rooms for smokers, Walker said. At the Disneyland Resort Paris, park guests can smoke in most places except indoors and while in line, he added. He said each resort made its decision based on local demand.

Marriott International doesn’t have plans to go smoke-free, said Gordon Lambourne, the hotel company’s senior vice president for global public relations in Washington, D.C.

Although 85% or more of Marriott’s hotel rooms are nonsmoking, “you still have customers, particularly in an international setting, who want to smoke,” he said.