Shit, where I grew up you could smoke in the library!
There was also an outside designated smoking area at the high school I went to called “The Smoking Pit”. That was it’s official name and it appeared in the schools handbook. Students could only smoke there between classes or during their off mods. You generally only had 5 minutes between classes so it was funny watching students run between the buildings puffing a grit.
I was on a couple of flights that had smoking sections back in the 80’s. So I remember them.
When I was in college in the early 1990s, one of my classmates had a t-shirt with two cartoon men saying this to each other. I don’t think he knew it was from a separate comedy routine.
I started college in 1988 and choose Northwest as my airline of choice, as they had already banned smoking, before the FAA banned it.
Was surprised to go to a grocery store in Switzerland in 1997 and discover someone smoking in the store. I grew up in the Pacific North West and don’t remember ever seeing someone smoking inside a grocery store.
Weirdest fire experience on a plane was in mid-November 2001, just after the second deadliest plane crash in 2001 (New York City). I flew from Switzerland to Newark and the flight attendants has lit a candle on a cupcake for a friend that was flying. I was in coach, of maybe a dozen passengers, and he was the only one in business.
And the ashtrays in the armrests with the little metal covers. They had not always been properly emptied or cleaned since the last user, which was kinda gross.
IIRC, for a few years after the smoking ban a lot of planes still had armrest ashtrays, but by then they were clean.
When I first started working in an office, there was a no smoking policy but only till 5pm when everyone went home. Except many of us worked much later [because we were and are insane workaholics].
I sat three offices down from a smoker. I could tell it was 5.01pm from odor of cigarette smoke. You could set your watch by it.
When I was backpacking around Europe I met a young Canadian women who smoked. But she explained to me that she hated cigarette smoke [!] so on aircraft she sat in non-smoking, but went to the smoking section to smoke.
I remember the smell from when I was a kid, but that is all. I know the airlines found it cheaper not to have to always pump in fresh air and just keep recycling the old. [off topic] It might cut back on Covid exposure if they did suck in fresh air.
The compressed air actually comes from the compressor stage of the jet engine, and is also how cabin pressurization is maintained. It’s more or less “free” except that in theory it does rob the engine of a tiny amount of power, but I don’t think it amounts to much.
I only vaguely remember smoking sections on airplanes and restaurants. Although on a trip to Germany a few years back I was eating outside at a bistro and everyone at the tables around me was lighting up, gave me a bit of a flashback to my childhood. It made me realize how far we had come and how awful it used to be. I could hardly taste my food.
It’s interesting watching old TV shows where almost everybody smokes. I Love Lucy, which ran from 1951 to 1957, is a prime example, driven I suspect at least in part by the fact that Philip Morris was one of their major sponsors. Not only did almost everyone smoke, but the subjects of cigarettes, matches, and lighters were often woven into the dialogue. You could often see cigarette smoke wafting between the performers. Today it all seems oddly quaint. In real life, Desi Arnaz died at a relatively young age of lung cancer.
As a kid, I had moderate to severe asthma. This is back in the 1970’s, when most of the drugs for asthma were kinda useless. I lived with Mom in Arizona, and flew back to Michigan to spend Christmas and summer with Dad. That flight often triggered a severe asthma attack. Sometimes it was bad enough to put me in the hospital. There, after being on Prednisone for a couple days, I could breathe again. The Before felt like having to breathe through a tiny straw. The After felt like I had 3 lungs.
Wouldn’t have worked in my case - both my parents had a two pack a day habit (mom’s might have been higher at times, but all she admitted to was two).
In high school I constantly had teachers and counselors giving me lectures on why I should stop smoking. They often didn’t believe me when I said I had never smoked and thought the habit disgusting. Why would they believe me? Living in my parents’ house I smelled like an ashtray.
Yes, you COULD smell the smoke even in the non-smoking section, at least the non-smokers could. Smokers are never really aware of just how pungent tobacco smells.
Smoke travels.
It always bothers me. It bothers me that anyone smokes at all, from my viewpoint it looks a lot like you’re punching yourself in head over and over. HOWEVER - you’re an adult and if you want to do that I’ll grant you have the right. I also want you to do it where I won’t have to breathe smoke. Your right to indulge in tobacco stops where it imposes on other people.
Sure, there could be a sealed room vented to outside the building where you could smoke without bothering anyone, but apparently the airports/airlines don’t think it would be profitable or beneficial to do so.
You’re a lawyer. Surely you understand how rules can be written for all and must be adhered to even in outlier cases. If the procedure is that such a script be read out prior to boarding then so it must be. Yes, it looks ridiculous, a lot of keeping aviation safe is adherence to procedure, even when it generates the occasional eyeroll.
Have a laugh and keep going.
Used to be small airplanes had ashtrays, too. Have a pilot friend who managed to get himself into a situation where he dropped his lit cigarette while flying his C172 (four seat single engine airplane, wing on top). Everytime he tried to bend over to pick up the cigarette the plane would start into a dive, and he’d have to straighten up to get it back level, then try to bend over again, then… meanwhile, the carpeting is starting to smolder as the cigarette rolls back and forth… right over the area where the fuel line runs under the floor of the airplane… and the cabin starts filling up with smoke. He has the windows open, heads for an airstrip with smoke pouring out of both sides of the cabin, gets it on the ground, jumps out, reaches back in for the fire extinguisher, and puts out the fire. At which point he decided that smoking and aviation were a bad combination and one of the two had to go. Since by the time I met him he had acquired two more airplanes and was working on his rotorcraft license I’m sure you can guess which one he gave up.
He also moved the fire extinguisher in the C172 from behind the pilot’s seat to behind the passenger’s seat so he could reach in while in flight.
Not this non-smoker. Unless the spitter is a complete slob I’d rather have the spitting than the smoking. Because with a spitter I don’t have to ingest the tobacco but with a smoker I’m stuck inhaling their second hand crap.
It’s very simple - if it spills it makes an unsanitary mess and stains things. Yuck.
Hit turbulence and, well, liquids can easily spill.
You’re saying that there is nowhere in an entire airport that can be far enough away from you so that smoke doesn’t bother you?? That seems extreme to say the least. I agree that I don’t have the right to bother you with my habit, but the flip side of that is that when you live in a society with others, you have to tolerate some things others do. You aren’t an island unto yourself that others must steer clear of and satisfy at all times. It is a balance, and I think that whatever side of that balance smoking should be on it is that a smoker can find a room far enough away from you in a giant building like an airport.
I remember when the smoking bans were trickling out and smokers would complain that it is the new temperance movement and people were trying to ban tobacco. I argued that it wasn’t the case because second hand smoke really did bother people. Fast forward to today and it is shown that they were right, people are now openly saying that they want to ban tobacco.
You might try reading my entire post. I did say that it was possible to set aside a room for you smokers, where the smoke is contained and not bothering anyone else, but presumably the airport has not done so for some other reason. The problem isn’t engineering.
I have asthma. You are asking me to tolerate behavior on your part that makes it difficult to breathe and causes me actual real physical pain. Please explain WHY that should be tolerated? If you want to punch yourself in the head that’s your problem. You are NOT allowed to punch ME in the head. You want to smoke that’s your problem. You are not allowed to force ME to smoke by polluting the air indoors.
I made it VERY clear I support your right to smoke - but insist you do it in a manner that doesn’t impose your bad habit on anyone else. Yes, that usually means you have to do it either in your own home or outdoors.
This is a digression to the subject of the thread, but I’ll respond. An airport terminal building may be gigantic, but the more relevant fact is that people don’t congregate in it wherever they happen to like. It’s essentially a large building with a very large number of smaller areas – like ticket counters, boarding areas, lounges, and stores – that serve specific functions, and all of them are individually small enough that cigarette smoke would be bothersome and a health hazard. Cigarette smoke is intensely acrid and penetrating. I literally get bothered by it when I’m behind another car at a stoplight, the windows are open, and the other driver is smoking.
Yes, we live in a society, but part of living in a society is the responsibility of curtailing dangerous and annoying activities that are a hazard to others. I don’t think anyone has the right to inflict second-hand smoke on another person any more than they have the right to dump their household garbage in the middle of the street.
I don’t know who is saying that, but I’m not. People can do whatever they like in the privacy of their own homes, although there may be some room for legal measures where innocent children are involved, just as it is illegal here to smoke in a car where there are small children. I wouldn’t mind seeing cigarettes disappear from our culture, or at least be socially shunned, but I’m not prepared to support any laws in that regard. What I do support is any and all reasonable measures to ban smoking in public places.
