Signs warn us that smoking is illegal pursuant to local code such-and-such, but why? It’s been that way for as long as I can remember, so it’s clearly not a health hazard/SHS issue. I’ve never seen curtains or carpet in an elevator, so i don’t think it’s a fire hazard issue.
Does anybody remember when this started to become popular? Did it initially draw the ire of the smoking crowd like the restaurant & bar smoking bans are doing now? In all of the smoking ban threads in GD, I don’t see any of the anti-legislation folks saying what a crime it is that banned smkoing in elevators so I am thinking there’s got to be a bona fide reason for doing so.
Well clothing can catch fire. Considering the fact that elevator cars have poor ventilation if any, no fire suppression equipment and the possibility that people could be trapped inside it’s not unreasonable that a fire code would ban smoking.
I think it first started the first time someone smoked a grit in an elevator. I’m not a smoking Nazi. I get real pissed when I read about some group trying to get smoking banned in restaurants and bars.
But an elevator? Normally smoke doesn’t bother me. But an elevator? That’s like being in a closet. Just one person smoking in there would turn it into a miserable gas chamber, even with an air circulation system. Blech.
Plus, it is a health hazzard. You have a crowded elevator and some slob with a cig in his mucus hole. Someones going to get burned.
Um - hello? An elevator is an enclosed space. There is no way for someone who does not wish to inhale smoke to get clean air in an environment like that.
What has that got to do with anything? By that reasoning smoking is also outlawed in bathrooms.
Granted an elevator is a small enclosed place, but we’re talking a total transit time from first to 6th floor of maybe 8 seconds. Saying that it’s a health issue or a “right to breath clean air” issue is a little silly.
BTW, I was thinking that there must have been some horrible smoking-related elevator incident that resulted in the deaths of the passengers, to justify the legislation. But so far all we have is “it seems like a good idea to ban smoking in elevators so let’s outlaw it”.
Do smokers really not understand how fucking obnoxious their habit is? If it only takes eight seconds to go from floor x to y, surely you can wait eight seconds for the sake of common courtesy, if nothing else?
I think they should amend the rules… no smoking in elevators in the presence of people with iron lungs and pregnant women. Everyone else, you probably get more carcinogens from eating a steak then inhaling a few puffs…
A grit, obviously, is a cigarette. A 'gret – a grit.
And what more than “it seems like a good idea” has ANY law ever required to justify it? Are you suggesting that there’s some downside to it? Does smoking in elevators have heretofore unrecognized benefits?
BTW, elevator trips can take a hell of a long time if it’s a long way up, especially if the elevator is old.
Nonetheless, I suspect that the reason for the ban is fire, not smoke. Dropping a butt in the car, leaving it to smolder – bad news. The smell of stale tobacco smoke covering up the smell of a fire – real bad news. A flourished brand setting clothes afire – priceless.
I see no reason why a little foresight might not have been at the root here. Maybe, for once, a safety law was passed before a disaster took place.
As a smoker for 5 years, I have encountered such problems when I am at the point in my day in which I want a cigarette the most. There is nothing better than clambaking your own cigarette and getting the full effect of nicotine. However, I have also seen the behavior of people who absolutely loathe the smell/cloudiness of smoke. I guess there are really three kinds of people who ride elevators: 1. the kind who smoke and believe that it is a great thing and are not at all apologetic or empathetic to the non-smokers request. 2. The non-smokers who can totally take a full blown burning tobacco assault, and not complain about it, and 3. Non-smokers who loathe the substance and have had bad association with tobacco and family members/friends. It has been proven that smoking is harmful to your health, some people brush that fact off their shoulders in their youth not considering the PROVEN and inevitable facts that smoking is dangerous. Well take for account a 45 year old person who has been happy to have never had a cigarette even brush their virgin lungs. If they were stuck in an elevator with some chump who was puffing away on any tobacco paraphenelia, they would naturally hold their breath attempting to hold out against this harmful smoke. It would seem rather unkind of a person to leave the elevator they just exited to be plagued with the harmful scent of their cigarette, just for some possibly unfortunate (possibly allergic) person to walk in and also possibly go into anapheleptic shock. This is the same for bars and restaurants, no one wants to smell it unless they are smokers themselves, that’s just a fact. I think the “fire code” is synomonous with “legislative occupants who are type #3 on my list of people who ride elevators” and just hate the smell of it and love their good ol’ virgin lungs.
Many responses in this thread are opinionated & emotional, and that’s unsatisfying. I hear a lot of “well why not ban smoking in elevators, it’s just the right thing to do!!”, but if you take a look at any of the smoking ban threads in GD you will see many posters crying foul at the same suggestion.
I was thinking that there has got to be a genuine factual answer to the question of why it’s perfectly acceptable to forbid smoking in an elevator but it’s not ok to ban it in a bar (and some bars are almost as small as elevators!).
Next time I get into an elevator and some jerk is puffing away I’m gonna let a big ol’ fart out. No wait. Fire + methane = boom.
The law is beginning to make more sense now.
I think it really has to do with a persons choice of being where they are, and whether they want to be there. Suppose a 50 story building with nothing but smokers in the elevator, and the ONE non smoker has to travel many stories down to exit the building. If this is the person’s place of business, they would not want to trek up and down 50 flights of stairs every day just so their smoking co-workers can hog the elevator. As for bars, people have a certain reason for going to bars. People go on their own volition, they are more than likely not making a living going to bars. If you want to avoid smoky bars…don’t go to smoky bars. It’s not ok to ban it in bars because most of the people who go to bars go there for the alcohol, cigarettes, and picking up women/men. Possibly the bar owners association of america have formed a lobby in congress to make sure that one of their main staples of business does not get snatched from them.
I’ve never seen an elevator inside a building one could smoke in anyway. I always just figured they put the sign there because people might try to sneak in a quick smoke on their way to the hundredth floor.
First off, bathrooms are required by code to vent a minimum amount of exhaust air and supply a minimum amount of fresh air, so they are far more ventilated than an elevator.
Secondly, I don’t know about the elevators in your hood, but some elevators are fast and some are slow. I’ve been on many elevators that take a good 20 seconds to get from floor 1 to floor 2.
With no ventilation in such a small area, any elevator that allowed smoking would become an ashtry in a matter of minutes.
You missed out #4 … the smoker, like myself, who wouldn’t dream of smoking in such an enclosed space with other people, out of common courtesy. I suspect we’re the largest group.
