ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701270038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WILTON, N.H.
SOURCE: KATHARINE WEBSTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AN ELECTRONICS COMPANY bars anyone who has smoked in the last two hours or even smells of tobacco.
If you're visiting Kimball Physics, be prepared to pass the sniff test administered by receptionist Jennifer Walsh.
If she catches a whiff of cigarette smoke on your breath, hair or clothes, she will ask you to step outside.
To protect its employees' health, .
The 3-year-old policy, which applies to visitors and employees alike, helps keep airborne particles out of the laboratories where workers assemble Kimball's main products, ion and electron guns used in equipment such as electron microscopes.
But it was primarily intended to protect employees' health, said Chuck Crawford, president of Kimball.
``It is our experimental experience that people can be made ill by amounts of tobacco residues that are below the level of sensitivity the nose can detect,'' Crawford said. ``We've taken the position it's not OK to make people even mildly sick.''
Kimball's 50 employees are on the honor system with regard to the two-hour rule. If an employee complains that a co-worker smells of smoke, the offender faces discipline.
But it isn't clear what that would mean, because it has never happened, Crawford said. In fact, he believes no employees smoke anyway.
The receptionist heads off most smoky visitors. When such people arrive at the main building, a converted red barn on a wooded hilltop, they are asked to wait on the porch while Walsh summons the employee they want to see. Then it's up to the employee to decide whether to invite the visitor inside.
``I haven't seen anybody get upset with the policy,'' Walsh said.
Exceptions are made in an emergency, like the time the copy machine broke and nonsmoking repairmen weren't available.
Some of the smoky visitors are job applicants there to see human resources director Faye Bigarel, who says even trace tobacco smells give her sinus headaches, make her nose run and constrict her breathing. When a smelly visitor shows up, she explains the policy ``gently and very politely.''
The applicant may wind up filling out his paperwork outside or in his car, or rescheduling his appointment.
Kimball's policy was approved unanimously in 1993 by its substance abuse committee, which any employee may join. No one has questioned it, because the workers like it, Crawford said.
The company banned smoking in the workplace in the early 1980s and had tried to hire only nonsmokers. In fact, Kimball ``bought'' two employees' right to smoke for $3,000 each to get them to quit.
Claire Ebel, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, said the current policy violates New Hampshire's 1993 ``smokers' rights'' law, which says employers cannot require workers to refrain from smoking on their own time.
``The policy clearly violates that statute because it attempts to regulate the use of tobacco products outside the workplace for a two-hour period,'' she said.
Tom Lauria, spokesman for the Tobacco Institute in Washington, said there is no scientific evidence linking the mere smell of smoke to asthma or other illnesses. ``For a scientific company to take such an unscientific posture reflects very badly on that company,'' he said.
Tell it to Kimball technician Arlene MacCallum, who suffers from chronic asthma and says even the smell of stale tobacco smoke can trigger an attack.
``One thing I've noticed in just the three years I've been working here, I've only been sick once with a sinus infection,'' she said. ``I haven't been to the emergency room once.''
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB