Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992 TAG: 9202270069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NO-PUFFING POLICY GOING UP IN SMOKE
Smokers who work for Roanoke County still were supposed to do their puffing outdoors Wednesday, but soon they'll be able to get in out of the weather.One county employee, who didn't want her name used, said it is good news to people who have been smoking in the rain since the first of the year.
On Jan. 1, the Board of Supervisors banned smoking in all county buildings.
The no-smoking signs still were up Wednesday at the county Administration Building on Brambleton Avenue, even though the supervisors had relented on the smoking policy Tuesday.
But, eventually, and maybe by the first of the month, the workers will be able to smoke indoors in designated places.
Supervisors tempered the ban on smoking in any part of any county building after being told by the county attorney that they probably went too far under a state law. The county will go back to designated smoking areas.
"Certainly if we could get a room inside, it would be great," said the county worker, a pack-a-day Merit smoker who has been inhaling in the rain.
It hasn't been easy, she said.
At one time, smoking was allowed on a loading dock at the Administration Building. But the fumes got into the ventilation system and non-smokers complained. From then on, it was outdoors, rain or shine.
Despite the matter of the fumes getting into the air system, most non-smokers "have been pretty nice about it, really," the Merit smoker said.
In the county finance office, Paul Grice said he smelled the smoke when it got into the ventilation system, and it "was real bad. It was real noticeable."
But Grice, a former smoker, said nobody in the building holds grudges, and there is no smoker/anti-smoker warfare going on.
"Most people have been pretty gracious about it," he said.
At the Cave Spring Rescue Squad building, 19-year-old Jason Doolan said he hadn't heard about the tempering of the smoking policy.
But he was pleased. Actually, Doolan, a volunteer squad member, said Wednesday that he has used a vehicle bay illicitly.
"I smoked one this morning, and I didn't know they'd changed the rule," he said.
Other volunteers at the squad building pointed out a sign on a door coming in from the bay that prohibited tobacco products. And they said there might have been some other smoking going on in the truck bay since Jan. 1.
"There were no smoke police around," explained volunteer Jim Cady.
Interviews with other squad members indicated that the strongest sentiments against the total ban came from volunteer rescue squad members and firefighters.
"It's been a real touchy issue," said one county firefighter who did not want his name used.
Anne Morrow-Donley, executive director of the Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public, also known as GASP, said some counties have not created any smoke-free areas.
Halifax County, for example, recently decided to designate smoke-free areas but then backed off, she said.
Donley knew of no other examples of a county government designating smoke-free areas and then changing the rule.
Many county employees didn't know about the change, and Roanoke County Administrator Elmer Hodge said he was preparing a memorandum to explain it. He said smoking areas will be redesignated in county buildings, perhaps as early as Monday.
He said employees who work in the buildings would be asked their opinions.
What the county wants to do, he said, is "treat people with dignity and try to encourage them to stop smoking."
Staff writer Michelle Riley contributed information to this story.