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Comfort Inn to ban smoking in rooms, lobbies on Jan. 1
Maryville Daily Forum
12/30/2009
Maryville, Mo. -
One local hotel has decided not to wait until smoke-free advocates collect enough signatures to get a workplace smoking ban proposal before Maryville voters sometime in 2010.
The Comfort Inn, which opened its doors on the south end of Business Route 71 in 1986, will prohibit smoking in all of its rooms and common areas beginning Jan. 1, manager Chuck Hetrick said Tuesday.
Smokers staying at the hotel will still be able to light up at a couple of outdoor locations placed at least 25 feet away from entrances and equipped with ash receptacles and bench seating.
Comfort Inn is the second reported service-sector business in or near Maryville to go smoke-free within that past two months. Gray's Truck Stop & Restaurant, located on the Highway 136/72 loop just north of town, threw away ash trays in its restaurant back in November. Smoking is still allowed in the adjoining gas station.
Like Marc Neff, one of Gray's owning partners, Hetrick said keeping smokers from lighting up is mostly a business decision. He added that a growing number of hotels are going smoke free, and that he expects the trend to continue.
"Nationally most hotels are going smoke-free," said Hetrick, who operates Comfort Inn as a franchisee of Choice Hotels. "Demand for smoking rooms is very low, and demand for non-smoking rooms is very high."
In late October, Neff said Gray's was eliminating smoking in hopes of winning back business it seemed to be losing to restaurants in Maryville, where smoking has been prohibited by ordinance since 2003. But on Tuesday he said the ban hasn't made much difference at the diner one way or the other.
"It (business) has been about the same," he said.
Hetrick said Comfort Inn's decision to prohibit smoking was made locally and not by Choice Hotels, and that the move was driven largely by requests from customers.
"All in all, I think it's going to make the traveling public friendlier," he said. "Some people practically want to sue you if they don't get a non-smoking room. It's a major issue."
Hetrick also thinks barring patrons from smoking will save a little money on deodorizing chemicals and other housekeeping supplies, though he admits he has a personal as well as a financial motive.
"Personally I just don't like the smell of cigarettes," he said, "and to all of us, I think, second-hand smoke should be a great concern."
Since early this fall Citizens for a Smoke-free Nodaway County has been lobbying the city to expand its existing ban on smoking in restaurants and banquet halls. If eventually approved by voters, the prohibition would apply to all places of employment, including private clubs.
Smoke-free advocates originally asked the council to enact the ban by simply passing an ordinance, which it has the right to do. But the five-member governing board voted Dec. 14 to let voters decide.
Then, on Monday, the council passed a statute setting up the legal machinery to allow a petition referendum to go forward. Organizers would like to get the issue before voters in the April election, but acknowledge they may not have time to gather the necessary signatures and have them certified before the Jan. 21 deadline.
Group spokesman Teri Harr has pledged to move forward regardless with an eye toward other election slots in June, August or November 2010.
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