Business Fare

A Reporter Lights Out for Places
You Can Light Up at Airports

By SUSAN CAREY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

It just isn't fair. If you're hooked on caffeine, beer or even tawdry novels, there's a quick
fix within ten yards of any airport gate. Indeed, the modern airport these days is
practically a shopping mall for human weakness, with kiosks and vendors pushing vices
everywhere you turn.

But smokers? Though we account for 25% of the adult U.S. population, most airports
have either cast us out or herded us into poorly ventilated areas where we must pursue
our nasty proclivity under the stern gaze of the superior 75%. Recently, this
correspondent, a pack-a-day consumer, set out on a cross-country journey to inspect the
accommodations for miscreants with frequent-flier miles. I also rated each airport on how
it treats our kind.

The news is mostly bad. In the nine years since smoking
was forbidden on domestic flights (it was phased out
U.S. carriers' foreign flights earlier this year), we have
coped by puffing feverishly on the ground before and
after. Then politically correct airport managers started
stamping out that option. Out went the ashtrays in airport bars, airline clubs and even at
the curb. In came those annoying public-address announcements -- "This airport is a
smoke-free environment" -- that play over and over again.

It's enough to make us crazy, and apparently it sometimes does: Half of all "air rage"
incidents are estimated to be related to smoking restrictions, according to a recent issue
of Air Line Pilot magazine. But most of us, instead of assaulting flight attendants, have
simply become expert at plotting where we're going to have the next butt: which airport
has glassed-in rooms, where the remaining smoky bars are located, which throwback
airline clubs still cater to the evil weed. It's our version of The Knowledge, the information
that London cab drivers must acquire in order to be licensed.

Think fast: Where can you smoke at LAX? Outdoor nooks off terminals 3 and 6. Which
airports have glass smoking rooms? Those in the know can recite them: St. Louis, Salt
Lake City, San Francisco ... .

Nancy Drummond, a marketing consultant in Chicago, displays her mastery. "La Guardia
has one little bar," she says. "You can't smoke anywhere in Chicago. Phoenix has a bar in
Terminal 2. Jacksonville [Fla.] has a bar. Louisville [Ky.] has a glass room." Recently she
was in Newark International Airport in New Jersey and added to her repertoire. "I found a
bar there," Ms. Drummond says. "I saw ashtrays. Thank God!"

In my travels, I inspected signage and ventilation, examined "purchase required" policies
in smoking bars and pondered why airports still peddle cigarettes but won't let us smoke
them. I walked miles to faraway concourses in search of rumored smoking establishments,
breathing in the aroma of Cinnabons every step of the way. But mostly, I talked to other
guilty, hacking puffers about our sad fate.

The odyssey began at Virginia's Richmond International
Airport, in the heart of Philip Morris country, because I
wanted to see its legendary smoking phone booths. It
seems too good to be true: a chance to smoke this close to
the gate. But there they were, just steps away from Delta
and United waiting areas. Large enough for two people, the
units are topped by ventilation systems that whir into
action when occupants trigger a motion detector.

Two years ago, entrepreneur Frank Barnes installed three
of the $3,500 units (pay phone not included) as prototypes.
Mr. Barnes says feedback has been positive, although his
Intec Group Inc., of White Plains, N.Y., hasn't received any
orders from other airports. "We recognize it's a niche
market," he allows, adding that he has heard from "a
hospital that wants to put two in their detox center."

Martha Alderman, a retiree from Las Vegas, stares at one
booth, studying the sign that proclaims, "Smoking Permitted within this space." Curiosity
wins, and she furtively slips in for a few, quick puffs. "Wow," she says later. "I saw the
sign and decided to try it. I usually go outside."

For those who find a phone booth too sterile, Richmond offers alternatives. The best is
the Hitching Post, a bar-restaurant with hanging plants, computer jacks and a
no-purchase-required policy. The ventilation is swell, thanks to engineering consulting
provided gratis by Philip Morris.

Coffee and Cigarettes

Bartender Sallie Holland says most patrons come in to puff on cigarettes and cigars, both
of which she sells. "Do you need an ashtray, sweetie?" she asks a woman who plops
down at the bar. The Hitching Post opens at 5:30 a.m. and does a huge morning
coffee-and-cigarette business, according to Ms. Holland. When harried travelers walk in
and see the ashtrays, they say, "Oh, you made my day," she says.

Those ever-helpful folks at Philip Morris operate their own luxurious smoking quarters in
John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 1 in New York. Called "A Smoking
Place," the year-old lounge doesn't advertise or sell cigarettes. Anyone can partake of the
free coffee and juice, piped-in jazz and VIP ambiance, but those who smoke must be 18 or
older. Comment cards from patrons gush. "I almost thought I was dreaming," one recent
visitor penned. "I said to myself that surely, there must be a God!" Another writes: "Very
civilized."

Georgia may be a tobacco state, but the smoking scene in Atlanta's Hartsfield
International Airport isn't nearly as salubrious. There I saw first-hand the glass "sin bins"
that smokers around the country carp about. Although the airport was thoughtful to
install them (with financial help from Philip Morris), most of the 11 rooms are hideous:
wimpy ventilation, disgusting mustard-colored ceilings, ratty old chairs with torn plastic
upholstery. The only amenities, if you want to call them that, are pay phones and piped-in
flight announcements. An Atlanta airport official concedes that the rooms are "fairly
barren dens of smoke," but adds that "what we have is better than not having anything."

Even worse than the ambiance are the looks that the denizens of these rooms get from the
pink-lung crowd promenading on the other side of the glass. Smoker Patricia Magnone,
on her way home to Richmond from Jacksonville, works with juvenile delinquents. She
says she feels like a delinquent herself when she gets those "how-could-you,
don't-you-have-better-sense looks" from passersby.

Rumor has it that the lounges in Atlanta's international concourse E are better, so I take a
train, an escalator and a long hike to check it out. The rumor is true. These lounges are
well ventilated and laid out so the occupants can't be viewed from the concourse. There is
even art on the walls. But whoa! What is this? In Images Bar & Grill, also in concourse E,
people are brazenly smoking.

Images has permitted smoking ever since concessionaire Host Marriott Services Corp. got
the contract to run it in 1995. Bartender Kristin Gehrmann says Images is "packed" from 4
p.m. to 8 p.m., when most international flights depart. Travelers are required to make a
purchase only when the place gets particularly crowded. Score one for the smokers.

Miami Vice

Next stop, Miami International Airport, to find out how the many foreign visitors who
pass through that smoke-free building cope. Unless they are diplomats (who can smoke in
their own VIP lounge) or members of airline clubs (some still allow cigarettes), they go
outside the terminal like the rest of us. Martin Braciani, an architect from Santiago, Chile,
sits on a ledge in the thick humidity (and smoke) enjoying a Viceroy. He says U.S.
intolerance toward the habit may force people to quit.

"On long travel, it's really good to not smoke inside the plane," he says. "It smells bad."

Some sleuthing leads to a couple of other smoking venues in the airport hotel near the E
gates. There are ashtrays in the small lobby bar and in the spacious lounge on the eighth
floor. The latter has charming wicker furniture, a grand piano and great views of the
runways.

Eager to avoid the heat and the fumes on the curb, I visit United's Red Carpet Club, which
has a small, windowless smoking room. In its domestic airport clubs, United allows
cigarettes only in Miami and Chicago (because of all the international travelers that come
through). Ditto for Northwest's clubs, which permit smoking in Detroit and Minneapolis.
American and US Airways are more indulgent, allowing puffers in about 20 clubs each.

In United's Miami club, Guyrd Sillis, a Belgian visitor, walks in and whips out a Marlboro
Light. Yes, he guiltily admits, he is a doctor with the habit. In Belgium, he says
defensively, "you can smoke almost anywhere." Dr. Sillis inspects the room and
concludes that it isn't very attractive. In fact, compared with the spacious, smoke-free part
of the club which he describes as "paradise," this room is "l'enfer," French for "hell."

Five hours later, I'm at Denver International Airport in a different iteration of hell, the
Aviators Club Smoking Lounge. There are two of them, and they mint money because
they are the only smoking venues and they require a purchase. I'm in the larger one, on
the mezzanine level of concourse B, nearly choking on the smoke. The place is full at 1:30
in the afternoon, and people keep pouring in, lighting up the instant they enter the room.

Couples drag their kids in and buy Cokes. Lone road warriors gulp down Budweisers. An
elderly woman arrives in a wheelchair powered by a skycap, who kindly waits with her
while she puffs. The average customer appears to spend only five minutes or so in the
establishment, although some have hunkered down in black leather armchairs with their
novels for a long stay. It's hard to see how they can stand it. "The ventilation is very
poor," New Zealander Heath Johnstone says, sucking on a Rothman's.

All the while, busy waiters and waitresses work the room, ensuring that everyone
purchases some sort of beverage. "This is the most expensive cigarette I've had in a long
time," a woman grouses after plunking down $2.10 for a coffee.

Owner David Mosteller, a nonsmoker, defends the policy, which has made his lounges
the top-grossing bars in the airport. "Without a purchase, they take up space and
smoke," he says. But he concedes that the 2,800-square-foot lounge in the B concourse is
a victim of its own success. It attracts 3,000 patrons a day, and the ventilation system
can't cope. He says he plans to double the size of the bar and at the same time upgrade
the ventilation system and get rid of the carpeting and soft ceiling tiles that retain odors.
"We want to be cutting edge," he says.

Smokes and Slots

Escaping with tobacco-suffused clothing and a rasp in my chest, I fly to louche Las
Vegas, a smoker's dream. McCarran International Airport is built for gamblers and
smokers, often one and the same. The marriage of these interests is evident in the sin bins
in its new D concourse. They are equipped with banks of slot machines, not telephones.
Each of the glass walls is decorated with a neon sign of a lit cigarette. The ventilation is
quite good.

It's 7:30 in the morning, and airport workers are lolling in chairs at one end of a sin bin,
while a group of Cantonese-speaking tourists is puffing madly on the other end. A man in
shorts ambles in, a cigarette already dangling from his lip, and starts playing the slots.

It's a far cry from that scene to the curb at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, my next
stop. Aware that the airport banned smoking inside two years ago, I make the long trek
out to the departure-level sidewalk. But there, attached to the metal railing every few feet,
are large signs that proclaim: "NO SMOKING On This Level." Oh really?

It turns out that, after complaints from skycaps and passengers, the city also banished
smokers to bus-stop-like enclosures on the arrival level curb downstairs. (Smokers
upstairs were flicking their butts over the railing, which meant they were raining down on
arriving passengers below.) The city says it hasn't arrested anyone for smoking upstairs,
but police officers have been known to tell people to move along. Every six months or so,
volunteers hit the upstairs curb with "thank you for not smoking" pamphlets and mints.

No mint pushers are out this afternoon. So I lean against a No Smoking sign, light a True
Menthol and resolve that in spite of my hard-earned Smoker's Knowledge I will quit the
habit by year end. There are plenty of other vices -- beer, trashy paperbacks, shopping -- I
can indulge at the airport.


Packing and Puffing
Below, the skinny on airport accommodations for the nicotine-addled. Ratings vary
from four **** (highly obliging to smokers) to one * (time to break out that
nicotine patch).

Airport
Rating
Comment
Atlanta Hartsfield
International
*
The vast airport's 11 glassed-in "sin bins"
are horrid; those in the know sprint to
Concourse E to smoke in the pleasant
environs of Images Bar & Grill.
Chicago O'Hare
International
*
Smoke outside at your peril on the upstairs
departure-level. Only smoking zone is
outdoors on the arrival-level below. Bus
and taxi fumes add to the experience.
Dallas/Fort Worth
International
*
Take your smokes and walk outside, unless
you belong to an airline club.
Denver International
**
Aviators Club Smoking Lounges are
packed, smoky and require patrons to make
a purchase. A coffee is $2.10.
Los Angeles International
*
In a seriously antismoking state, LAX
offers two humble outdoor atriums for
smokers. More folks head to the zoo-like,
fenced-in walkways to the parking garages.
Miami International
**
The nonsmoking facility does allow the evil
habit in some airline lounges and in two
venues in the hotel in the terminal. But the
curbside isn't that bad because there are
palm trees and tropical plants within view.
Minneapolis/St. Paul
International
*
Even the curb is off-limits, except in
designated smoking zones. Advice to the
desperate in winter: Join Northwest's
WorldClubs. One lounge at MSP has a
smoking section.
New York Kennedy
International Terminal 1
****
Besides its bars, restaurants and airline
lounges that allow cigarettes, the terminal
has a Philip Morris-sponsored smoking
lounge that is as nice as any private airline
club-and is open to all comers.
Richmond International
****
Has an attractive bar-restaurant, the
Hitching Post, with super ventilation, and
another food-and-beverage outlet that
smells like smoke. An added bonus: three
smoking phone booths.
Washington Reagan
National Airport
***
Smoking is allowed in Foggy Bottom
Brewpub near the Continental gates in
Terminal B and in US Airways' splendid
lounge, for those lucky enough to be
members.


Source: The Wall Street Journal and GKMG Consulting Services Inc.