I work in the sales department of a hotel, but also train front desk. We don't give incentives to our housekeepers, but they seem happy enough to report any smoking. After all, if fining defers future smoking in the room, that's less clean-up the housekeeping staff needs to do. Everytime there is smoking in a room, housekeeping needs to thoroughly air out the room, cleaning, fe-breezing, etc, for the next guest. It makes for a lot of extra work. Plus, I don't think they need to be sifting through garbage - you just walk into the room and the smell is in the air. A lot of guests don't even try to hide it, leaving ashes and butts in glasses, on windowsills, in toilets.
I agree that no-one should be going through personal garbage--that just seems a bit extreme!!

Posted By Heather Kribs on February 21, 2008, 2:42 PM

I fully agree with Heather's comment about how much additional work is required to clean up after smokers who use non-smoking rooms. It's a pain in the butt :)

That said, something about the idea of an incentive-based system to smoke out (sorry) smokers seems excessive. This could easily lead to a large number of erroneous finger pointing and create more problems than it solves.

Furthermore, hotels should routinely reward housekeepers - who are terribly underpaid - with bonuses for the great service they provide...not for "catching" smokers.

Posted By Pete on February 21, 2008, 4:58 PM

We charge $200 and evict anyone smoking in our b and b. That is nothing compared to the cost of replacing linens and curtains that you never get the smell out of, and rug cleaning required to get the film out. Tobacco smoke has an oil in it that permeates and stains everything!

The Alexander House Booklovers B and B

Posted By elizabeth on February 25, 2008, 12:18 PM

I applaud any lodging facitilies that "enforce" the no smoking rules and however they do it is fine with me. Nothing can be more offensive than the rudeness of smokers who insist that they do not stink or that they have every right to extend this to others whether they want it or not. How sad to be so addicted that they must act that way.

Posted By Joyce on February 25, 2008, 1:00 PM

Removing the odor of tobacco smoke is challenging and expensive. As a realtor, I've often found that it can cost $1,000 or more, even after a house has been cleaned, to get that odor out of a home while preparing it for market. It's easy to see how a hotel could incur at least $250 in expense to clean, a room especially after the smoke has permeated the draperies, upholstery, carpeting and bedding.

Posted By Lewis Edge on February 25, 2008, 2:24 PM

As a non-smoker who is allergic to smoke, I think it is a great idea to fine people who smoke in the rooms. I get migraines just being in a room where people have smoked which often send me to the Emergency Room. I do have children who smoke but they respect my request that they not smoke around me. I think the maids who have to do all the extra work trying to get the smell out of the room should be rewarded. I am sure there are as many if not more people who would like to stay in a non-smoking room as those who smoke.

Posted By Peggy on February 25, 2008, 2:41 PM

I have family members who are allergic to cigarette smoke. Personally, I find the smell disgusting. I always reserve non-smoking rooms and would be offended to find the room otherwise. Febreezing isn't enough to get the smell out and I think hotels should charge the full cost of replacing the soft goods in the room (curtains, carpet, bedding, etc.). That should deter smokers from violating the non-smoking label on the room.

Posted By Val on February 25, 2008, 2:51 PM

Nah, nah, nah. Sounds like a bunch of crybabies here. Whatever happened to live and let live, and minding your own business? We have become a nation of pampered wimps, upset by the least little thing.

Posted By Jay on February 25, 2008, 3:51 PM

Both diesel fumes and cigarette smoke are triggers for asthma, and until you've visited the hospital because you can't breathe, you can't imagine the terror. There are several in our extended family that suffer from asthma, one of which has to travel with a breathing machine. The insensitivity of some smokers to this very real concern demands more than a $250 fine. But a hotel using Febreeze to mask the odor? Talk about adding salt to a wound!

Posted By alisan on February 25, 2008, 3:54 PM

A nonsmoker, I detest the habit. Fortunately most flights now (except Egypt Air), restaurants and other public places are nonsmoking now. What is "fe-breeze"? Never heard of it.

Roger Williams, Boulder, Colorado USA.

Posted By Roger AC Williams on February 25, 2008, 4:53 PM

Having worked at a hotel I think the penalty should be enforced. Smokers rooms are the worst in the hotel, and the guest the rudest. A housekeeper doesn't have to sift through trash to see if a guest has smoked you know when you walk in the room. When i worked at hotels nobody liked to clean them (even the smokers)and it a danger to people to breath in those toxic leftover fumes. Plus if they get a bonus good for them since usually the manager gets a bonus as the result of how well the hotel passes state inspection, while the housekeeper who did all the work gets nothing, except more rooms to get done and yelled at by the manager. I have worked in a few hotels and they all are like this. Budget to fancy. So no sympathy for any smoker, you cause more danger to everyone as it is.

Posted By Carrie on February 25, 2008, 5:16 PM

I'm an ex-smoker and I can't stand the awful obnoxious smell. Someone that smokes in a non smoking room is selfish, rude and childish, something I never would have done when I smoked.
$250 is not enough to stop the abusers.

Posted By Donna McDonell on February 25, 2008, 6:38 PM

No rewards for housekeeping or they may smoke in your room. I have left my room for the day, only to return and my room smell smoky. Yes I have complained. What you choose to do to your own health is your problem but smokers seem to think they have a right to bestow their problem on the rest of us. $250 is not enough and fabreeze will not get the smell out.

Posted By Gail Stephens on February 25, 2008, 6:59 PM

I personally think that the $250 policy doesn't go far enough. Execute them. Oh, I forgot, they are killing themselves anyway. I just don't want to have to smell their death nicotine odor.

I am retiring from the house painting business and the #1 complaint from our customers was cigarette butts left on their property.

Posted By James Grover on February 25, 2008, 7:47 PM

If you don't allow smoking, I think they ought to outlaw perfume too. I am smoker and I am a curtious smoker. Ashes go in the ashtray and I dumped my ashtray and wash it when I leave a hotel room. Of course the problem most people don't like the smell of smoke, but they seem to tolerate perfume. Perfume is worse for asmatics than smoking. Of course that doesn't count. If I pay my money, I ask for a smoking room. If no smoking room is available, i either don't stay there or I go outside to smoke. GROW UP. My age group fought hard for you to have rights but you sure don't care about anybody's rights but yours.

Posted By Shiflett on February 25, 2008, 7:58 PM

My husband and I both used to smoke and just hate the stink smokers leave behind. We were in Las Vegas and had a room on a non-smoking floor. We could smell the smoke coming under our door and at 2 AM the smoke detector went off. In most of the hotels out there you have to go through part of the casino to get to the front desk or the elevators to get to your room. YUK! It just made me sick! We won't go back there again! If you smokers out there knew how bad you smelled you'd quit!! When I have to hang my coat next to yours I have to air it out when I get home.
To Jay, you sound like a died in the wool smoker. I hate to tell you but you're being out numbered. I hope my taxes never have to pay for your cancer treatments!! Nancy

Posted By Nancy Gomez on February 25, 2008, 9:43 PM

I have no problem with the fines but the incentive to maids worries me. But there is another problem with this whole concept: I was accused of smoking in a non-smoking room though I hadn't. The only thing that prevented them from adding the fine to my credit card was my insistance that they first speak to the desk clerk on duty the night before to whom I had complained about smoke drifting in my window from the patio below. So the problem is one of trying to prove a negative. If I hadn't complained, I would have been stuck with the fine.

Posted By Karen on February 26, 2008, 8:25 AM