It’s OK to smoke outside Southwest Florida International’s passenger terminal, but that could change.
Lee County commissioners directed airport staff Monday to study prohibiting smoking on the grounds of the airport and at the Page Field general aviation facility.
A ban would apply to both airport workers and members of the public. Smoking already is prohibited indoors at county airports. Airport director Bob Ball said staff would have to study how to police the situation and also janitorial issues if, for example, they removed the ash receptacles.
Commissioner Frank Mann broached the topic Monday, calling second-hand smoke a “health issue” for airport visitors and for the people who work there.
“I’d like to see a sign along the road to the airport, saying ‘This airport terminal, inside and out, is a non-smoking area,’” he said after the meeting.
The idea dismayed two visitors smoking near the terminal curb Monday. “I respect everybody, so I don’t smoke indoors,” said Gary Wyman, who has homes in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Naples. “But to ban smoking outside the terminal – I think that’s a form of socialism.”
Adam Wecht, a New Jersey National Guardsman on medical leave and a former area resident, said he’d use Miami International instead of the local airport if an outdoor smoking ban were imposed. Recalling some long waits at airports around the world, Wecht said: “I’m all for keeping (smoke) away from the terminal doorways and from children. Don’t (airport leaders) have better things to be doing?”
Nationwide, “Airports are getting the smoking areas away from the entry doors and away from areas where the smoke tends to linger,” said Brandon Frick of the California-based American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
Mann’s efforts to further clear airport air aren’t the first locally. Effective Nov. 19, Lee Memorial Health System will prohibit smoking and use of any tobacco products on its campuses, indoors and outdoors.
source: news-press.com
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