Detroit airport is planning to add a cigar lounge, and anti-smoking groups are freaking out, claiming it “would expose millions of travelers and airport employees to harmful secondhand smoke.”
Opponents include the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Detroit Wayne Oakland Tobacco-Free Coalition, Parents Against Vaping e-Cigarettes (PAVe), and Tobacco Free Michigan.
Naturally, the CDC prefers no smoking at all,
[S]moke-free policies that completely eliminate smoking inside airports are the only way to fully protect nonsmoking employees and travelers from [secondhand smoke] exposure.
I am not a smoker. Maybe 25 years ago I’d occasionally have a cigarette at parties. I can count the number of cigars I’ve had on one hand, and those were largely Cubans I may or may not have brought back to the United States for the novelty.
But I’d note that there are other U.S. airports with smoking areas, like Miami, Las Vegas, and Nashville. Travel to Europe they’re much more common. Frankfurt has several smoking lounges throughout he airport equipped with special ventilation systems. Munich, Vienna, Zurich, and Rome offer smoking as well. You’ll find smoking areas throughout Tokyo Haneda, Singapore Changi, Seoul and Hong Kong, too, to name just a few.
And these are some of the world’s best airports! Modern smoking lounges have proper containment and ventilation, so you wouldn’t know from outside the space that smoking was going on inside.
You’ll even find a cigar lounge in Lufthansa’s First class terminal, just inside the entrance down the hall on the right.
Emirates doesn’t just have smoking lounges throughout the Dubai airport, but there’s even a cigar bar in the A concourse first class lounge. If not for the signage, you’d never know.
Here’s the modern approach to airport smoking spaces:
- Negative Air Pressure: Smoking lounges are designed to maintain a lower air pressure compared to surrounding areas. This ensures that air flows into the lounge rather than out, keeping smoke contained.
- HEPA air filtration: Air extracted from smoking lounges is passed through HEPA filters to remove particulate matter, including smoke particles.
- Carbon Filtration: Activated carbon filters absorb odors and harmful chemicals, such as benzene and formaldehyde, to minimize their release.
- Direct Exhaust: Use of direct exhaust vents releases filtered air outside the airport building, bypassing shared air circulation systems.
- Frequent Air Exchanges: Air in smoking lounges is typically replaced every few minutes to dilute smoke concentration and maintain air quality.
To the extent these systems are properly set up and maintained, they work extremely well. Negative air pressure isolates the contents. HEPA filtration traps nearly all particulates. And passengers outside the space have limited exposure to the air in any case.
If there’s a reasonable concern it’s that Detroit airport might not maintain the systems as well as Tokyo Haneda. Put another way, there are American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers standards for indoor air quality that they should be adhering to. If you don’t believe they will, you would have concerns, but those concerns should be far broader than a cigar lounge.
In airports with modern systems like Frankfurt or Singapore – or ostensibly a new build in Detroit – the risk of secondhand smoke exposure is minimal. In older facilities, perhaps the Cairo airport terminal 3 smoking lounge down by the F gates, you might get leakage of odor and pollutants.
Twelve years ago, a study promoted by cigar lounge opponents found that airport smoking areas contributed to higher levels of detectable particulate matter, however it concluded that “the difference between the average level in the nonsmoking areas of airports with designated smoking areas and the average level in smoke-free airports was not statistically significant.”
And in any case, cigars aren’t cigarettes; brand new systems are far more prophylactically effective than already-old systems measured a dozen years ago; and there’s not really a suggestion that higher measurable particulate matter poses any specific public health risk.
CDC argues that “There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke.” That’s a sleight of hand game. There’s no risk-free flying, either, even though it’s far safer than driving! There’s no risk-free ownership of buckets. There are about 15 deaths annually attributed to buckets. “Risk-free” isn’t nearly as useful a concept as relative risk. Most of the food in airports and on board is unhealthy, and thus not risk free. The escalators at Detroit airport are riskier than this!
Travelers like a beer in the airport, marking the moment as you set off on an adventure or begin a journey. And some like a cigar, too. I think that’s ok?
Dear culture-warriors, is Michigan now a ‘red’ state, but Detroit is still a ‘blue’ city, so am I, a libcuck, supposed to love this or hate this? And is smoking ‘woke’ or not? Thanx.
I mean, okay, but why? Smoking is a harmful vice. It should be your right to do it if you want (I’ve smoked the occasional cigar myself) but do airports (public utilities) really need to be facilitating your desire to destroy yourself, in pursuit of profit? If you have a couple of hours to kill at the airport and you choose to do it in a smoke-filled room, you’re kind of an idiot. Especially since you’re probably going to have to pay a good chunk of money for the “privilege”.
The systems in the smoking lounges in Europe work very well. I am an ex-smoker and can detect tobacco smoke outdoors if someone is smoking 50-100 yards away. However, I have never smelled smoke when walking past one of these lounges in an airport.
I think a cannabis cafe using the same isolation techniques would be more popular.
I don’t smoke and never have. That said I see nothing wrong with putting smoking lounges in when done right.
Some of there groups need to get a grip. Sou can’t save people from themselves and one person, group’s opinion doesn’t need to be forced on everyone else. This goes for religion, smoking or other behaviors.
I hate the smell of cigarette or weed smoke. Glad it is gone from planes and public spaces. Contained smoking areas are fine.
Rant over.
I’d much rather there be these fishbowls, inside airport security, than walk through the some clouds from random smokers, huddled curbside and burning one for a last minute nic fix, under some vaguely-unenforced signs proclaiming “no smoking within xx of entrance.”
Besides, they provide a service for the connecting passengers who do smoke. Those folks are going to get their fix but the smoking lounge saves them the hassle of exiting and re-entering security- which actually helps the nonsmokers too.
The odor totally offends me and makes me nauseous. So if I throw up on you, it will be ok….
Oh come on. How about burnt jet fuel and the soot they produce and those you can find in the airport and in planes. Hydrocarbons are much worse and are constant in everyday air and are much worse than tobacco particulate matter.
What do we do next? Close and vacate the cities ) Mumbai, LA, Reno, Pittsburgh etc etc.
I’m not a smoker to be clear. I hate cigarette smoke.
Cigar lounges might be more of a luxury, but all airports should have at least one place airside for smoking. Many don’t, and this causes more people to go outside and then back through security, holding up the lines and putting more pressure on the TSA (like they need that).
I’m what the allergist calls ‘hyper-sensitive’ to tobacco smoke. Nobody has mentioned the stench clings to clothes, skin .. I foolishly changed seats voluntarily on Delta Business First … discovered my new seatmate must have attended a Winston convention in the ATL smoking room. Like fingernail polish remover it’s unnecessary and extremely intrusive. Instead of the room, offer a discount on Nicotine gum. And avoid the absolutely-certain litigation over second-hand smoke.
Alcohol and lottery tickets are consumed in airports, why not cigars? It’s all opt in tax revenue. People paying extra taxes should be encouraged.
I smoke like a chimney and I don’t want abstinence to be enforced on me just because some whiny people claim that it’s bad for you. I therefore approve of anywhere that has airside smoking areas like the airports mentioned above plus GSP and TPA. It makes me less irritable on a flight. And speaking of that, restore smoking areas to planes. Before you say something like “What about…”, please realize that I don’t care one bit about what you want or what anybody else wants. What I want is for all flights to be the early 60s Businessman Specials on UA. No women and their insistence on window seats combined with heavy carry-ons they cant get out of the overhead racks that delay everyone deplaning, plus steak and cigars. That’s heaven.
Smoking room on the Hindenburg worked. And yeah, there’s plenty other stuff around an airport that is worse for you.
I would rather people smoke inside a well filtered box than around the curbside where I’m waiting for an Uber.
Plus, we let people drink in airports (and even encourage it). I don’t know anybody who has gotten themselves duct taped to a seat and cuffed by the FBI from smoking in a cigar lounge. Rather the airport make money off that than something that I have to fund… (and the way most US airports work, the increased revenue has a balance in rates and charges, parking, etc).
Nashville has a cigar lounge (at least one – near the Delta gates on B). I don’t think you’d even know it’s there unless you went looking for it.
I’m not sure that the pearl clutching by the health police is really effective. Why don’t they require no salt on food instead if they are that desperate for a cause.
@ Gary — Smoking should be banned from all public places without exception.
@ DaninMCI — Like this is a serious cause of security line backups?? Good that it is so inconvenient. Smoke at home.
The groups against this are the PETA of smoking – Some people smoke, some don’t – I’m in the latter group. That said, I don’t care if folks want to smoke as long as I’m not forced to deal with the smell.
Airlines make seating in coach uncomfortable in an attempt to sell passengers more expensive seats. TSA security theater is worse for those who don’t pay for programs to bypass the worst parts of it. Why make anything comfortable for smokers in airports? Eliminate all smoking areas inside terminals and sell nicotine gum at inflated rates (not sarcasm but very cynical).
Good grief if the entrepreneur wants to take a risk on it and can do it without material smoke leaving the premises, go for it