Story with a happy ending thanks to flyertalk.com and Marriott manager.

Met a lady whose daughter is getting married in So. Cal and we got talking about weddings, receptions, hotels etc. She mentioned that she had 35 rooms booked for out of town guests at the Marriott. I saw this lady had cigarettes in her purse as she opened it so I mentioned the "No smoking at Marriott properties" and asked if she was aware of it assuming she may be one of the guests at the hotel. She was aware of this policy but was under the impression that since her reservation was made in August and she had no correspondence from Marriott stating otherwise that she was being Grandfathered in.

Thanks to flyertalk I was able to share info I've learned here that it was my understanding that no one was being Grandfathered in etc. She contacted the hotel directly and sure enough....the 12 smoking rooms (out of 35 rooms) she had reserved were all now Non smoking. The manager was very professional and volunteered to make other arrangements for her. Within 1 day he had a block of rooms reserved at a "competitor" hotel near by. Now that is professionalism.

The moral from this ladies story as I see it:
Do not assume you're OK just because you haven't been notified of the change in policy (although they certainly owed it to this woman after booking 35 rooms and to any smoker who has not yet been notified)

Keep reading flyertalk. Many non frequent Marriott patrons would not be aware of this like the frequent travelers would be. If not for flyertalk, I wouldn not have known.

Kudos to the Marriott Manager for handling this so professionally and taking the stress out of this woman's life by locating the rooms for her.

BTW, the wedding is 2 weeks away, certainly not the stress the Mother of the Bride needed at the 11th hour.