Posted By Steve Cartwright It is entirely up to the hotel. If it wants to go smoke free it can and if it wants to provide rooms for you to smoke in it can. Even before the legislation came in if a hotel wanted to ban smoking it could. If I were you I would book into a hotel that does not provide rooms you can smoke in. One poster on this web site claims it will improve your fitness and reduce the risk of you having heart problems if you have to walk outside to smoke. Couldn't resist.

Posted By Edward Shyer KB There is nothing in the legislation that says that hotel rooms must be smoke free but as Steve has correctly mentioned the hotel can make this policy. As a none smoker this is not a problem for me but If I was you and wanted to smoke in my hotel room I would only use a hotel that provided this service. Good to see my opinions a being promoted and that they are actively being encouraged in supporting an healthy lifestyle. Couldn't resist either Regards Ted

Posted By Philip Beale Probably helps their insurance cost if the building is smoke free (no one falling a sleep setting fire to their room). As other topics have covered about council workers visiting homes you must stop smoking 2 hours before a visit etc. Could be the same argument for people who have to clean and service the rooms Phil

Posted By Bob Thompson CMIOSH ok its friday , what about kebabs ted. Bob

Posted By Edward Shyer Bob Thompson CMIOSH Sorry I don't understand what your point is or what it has to do with this thread. Regards Ted

Posted By Edward Shyer Steve, As a H&S site and your lambasting of my comments. in an earlier thread you worried about the press picking up the comments stated by individuals on this site. You are not doing a bad job of showing the Daily mail journalists who could be reading these pages just how the professional Health and Safety Practitioner conducts themselves. In response to Bobs query and your perceived interpretation of his comment I say Walking to the Kebab shop must be good for his health as it is a known fact that walking is better for the body that jogging or running. As to the fat content in the kebab if he eats the kebab on his way home then he will have burnt off some of the fat content. My biggest worry would be food poisoning having seen inside some of these establishments. Sorry to the originator of this thread for having to respond to something unrelated to your posting Regards Ted

Posted By IOSH Moderator The above thread has also veered off subject. Can I strongly advise posters that they should return to the subject in question or face the thread being locked under AUG 1. The discussion point was: "I have to travel a lot with my employment and regularly stay in hotels. It is getting more and more difficult to find a hotel room you can actually smoke in. Lots of hotels are changing this as part of their company policy and to be honest I can understand why but other hotels are quoting it is part of the new legislation. Unless I am missing the point with the new legislation I will be in the room on my own not polluting others with my second hand smoke. Any further clarification would be greatly received." Regards Jane Blunt

Posted By Glen Coe I expect that you will find the expulsion of smokers more frequent, since the change in law rightly or wrongly. The reason that hotels are going smoke free is very clear. It is established that smokers are a dying breed, hotel rooms which are used by smokers smell of smoke for days, not just while an individual smokes, it gets into the fabric of the furnishings, discolours the decor etc. Non smokers do not like to take rooms with a smell of smoke, as it is unpleasant for non smokers, and the smell of the smoke attaches to their clothing all day and as such many smokers do not smoke in their own homes. A hotel must fill all the rooms to make their profits... If they cannot fill certain rooms due to the next guest being a non smoker and rejecting the room due to the smell of smoke you can see the hoteliers point. Whilst there are also many good points on fire safety, health exposure of workers etc. I suggest the main reason is commercial and will spread to more and more public places. Cheers GC

Posted By MT Alan, the R is missing from ayr in your link above. www.south-ayrshire.gov.u...lth/smokefree-hotels.asp

Posted By J Knight Merv, to take up your point about passive smoking and the lack of hard evidence. First of all I would say that there is some evidence, its just not that robust and can all be challenged. But that's an inevitable consequence of the available methods of inquiry. Public health effects are notoriously difficult to investigate, as I'm sure you know. Researchers cannot use the gold standard, double blind randomised trials on human subjects, as that would be unethical and would in any event take many years. Animal studies are always open to the charge that animals are different, most famously in the idea that had penicillin been trialled on guinea pigs it would never have been used, because it kills them. So researchers are left with cohort studies, and these are an absolute pain. You have to choose the right cohort, control for all the other variables, keep track of them and so on. Challenges to the evidence are available at every stage, and even on much less emotive subjects than smoking the evidence gathered is very hard to interpret (for example does aspirin in small doses inhibit or promote strokes, or does it have no discernible effect?). Do you believe that good evidence of a link between passive smoking and terminal illness (cancer or CHD or COPD) will never be demonstrated? And what would you consider to be an adequate demonstration? Would you want evidence at the standard 95% confidence limit? Or would you demand a higher level of confidence as, for example, some radio disk jockeys do for global warming? You're not the only person to take the 'not proven' view on this forum, and at the moment I'd say the jury is still out. But I'll stick my neck out. Within ten years there will be evidence at the 95% confidence limit of a causal link between passive smoking and terminal illness. I feel confident that this will be the case because there is already evidence of a link, even though it is not as yet robust, John