The Wall Street Journal says hotel chains have had it with smokers who light up in non-smoking rooms.
The story reports:
More hotels are starting to introduce fines for
smoking, are increasing fines or are beginning to more aggressively
enforce those that are already on the books. As more hotels institute
100% smoke-free policies, hotels say the fines are necessary to get
people to stop lighting up and to cover cleaning costs for those who
won't. Nonsmoking guests, they say, are getting more sensitive about
smelling any hint of cigarette smoke in a nonsmoking room.
Last week, Sheraton and Four Points by Sheraton, divisions of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
Inc., announced all of its North American properties will have a $200
smoking charge when the brands become 100% nonsmoking at the end of
2008. Walt Disney
Co.'s Walt Disney World Resort hotels started applying a new smoking
charge of as much as $500 in June 2007, when the brand became totally
nonsmoking. Swissotel Chicago started charging $175 for smoking in a
nonsmoking room in the beginning of 2007 but raised the charge to $250
when it announced a 100% nonsmoking policy in December.
A charge of "$175 wasn't quite enough to get people to
stop," says Nicole Jachimiak, marketing director for the hotel. Ms.
Jachimiak says the steeper fine seems to be working: The hotel is now
catching -- and fining -- fewer smokers.
