Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 21, 1993 TAG: 9305210036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY LEIGH ALLEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It wouldn't be a problem if the Roanoke Valley shimmered under the sun of Southern California, either.
But it's the possibility of bad weather, you see, that many travelers say keeps them from supporting a proposed ban on smoking inside the Roanoke Regional Airport terminal.
"What if it's 20 degrees below zero out here?" said one Roanoke businessman as he dragged on a Camel Light while unloading his bags in front of the airport terminal Thursday afternoon.
While 20 below may be a little extreme for Southwest Virginia, most smokers traveling through the airport said they weren't happy with the prospect of being banished to the great outdoors in order to smoke.
Alvira Caruso, traveling through the airport on the way back to her home in Cleveland, said she knows what would happen if the ban goes into effect.
"I've seen it at the hospital in Cleveland that doesn't allow smoking," she said, puffing on a cigarette in the airport's snack bar. "Nurses stand around outside in the cold just to smoke. It's terrible.
"One little snowstorm and they would be huddled out there like bananas," she said, referring to the clusters of smokers she expects will form outside the terminal if smoking is banned inside.
The Airport Commission is considering a ban that would prohibit smoking in all public areas of the terminal. Smoking now is allowed throughout the terminal with the exception of some designated gated areas and a special nonsmoking lounge.
Waiting to catch a plane back to his home in Charlotte, N.C., Garry Swanson said the proposed ban would not bother him as long as it did not prevent him from smoking in the airport's cocktail lounge.
"I don't want a cigarette now, but I would want one if I were drinking," Swanson said. "If you're serving alcohol to me, you've got to let me smoke."
Not so, says airport Concessions Manager Mark Wisniewski.
Although the proposed ban would not affect smoking in the airport restaurant, cocktail lounge or snack bar, Wisniewski said, the company that owns those establishments has voluntarily decided to snuff out smoking in them beginning July 1.
He said customer complaints about smoking prompted the decision. The restaurant and lounge are too small and open to effectively separate smokers from those who are bothered by smoke, he said.
"In the four or five nonsmoking tables we have it's just like being in the smoking area because the smoke blows right over them."
by CNB