Enforcing no smoking indoors in your workplace?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
How does your workplace enforce no smoking indoors, and how successful have they been at doing this?

I've just had to send an email to the building management of the building of which my employer is one of the tenants, to remind them that a door separating one of the indoor cafes from an outdoor smoking area really needs to be kept closed. It's not the first time I've had to mention this to them, and it gets frustrating that they don't appear to take it seriously.

There is also a smoking problem in the ground-level carpark, which I walk through twice a day because the bicycle cage is down there. Again, the building management don't enforce no smoking in there rigorously enough. It's illegal by Victorian State law for any building owners to allow smoking indoors, unless they've applied for and been granted an exemption, e.g. for a dedicated smoking area of some kind. My building definitely has no such exemption for its carpark, so they're obliged to prevent people smoking in this carpark.

Note: I'm not trying to start any debate about the pros and cons of smoking, only about prevention of smoking indoors, and keeping areas smoke free when they're meant to be smoke free.
 

gavintc

Guru
Location
Southsea
Never happens and the little smoking shelter is some distance from the building. All the smokers head out to the little smoking place. No one smokes anywhere near the building.
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
In the UK it's against the law to smoke in enclosed working places/offices. Ban has been in force since 2007.
I've yet been into an office since the ban started and found anyone smoking.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
It is illegal in every non-private building in the UK now so it is easier to enforce than when it was done on a building by building, or even room by room basis.

Even before the law banned it, it was banned everywhere in the building in which I worked, except for one smoking room, which could only be used during breaks. The problem was that the smokers objected to having to wait until the breaks to top up their nicotine levels so they sneaked into toilet cubicles and lit up with the windows open to let the smoke out. With their sense of smell knocked out by smoking they probably didn't realise that within 30 seconds, the smell of smoke had leaked out into our open-plan office ... :thumbsdown:

We complained to the management and they 'had a word' with the culprits. After a few verbal warnings, they started issuing written warnings, and eventually it stopped.

(PS I see Ian has just beaten me to it!)
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
The biggest issue we have is students smoking outside the main entrance to buildings despite having smoking areas. Sign's and even an automated message have been used to no avail.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Prior to the general ban I worked in a building where it was banned from above, and they just had a smoking room that they thought no one would realise it was, except it had a glass partition in the coffee room and the roof tiles were yellow on one side or white on the other, plus the smell.

Since the ban I've not seen it in buildings just the occasional smoke on the bus, or in company vehicles.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Since the ban I've not seen it in buildings just the occasional smoke on the bus, or in company vehicles.
I have been on trains when announcements such as this have been made - "There is a smoke detector in every toilet compartment so we know you are smoking in there - put it out now! If anybody is found smoking anywhere on this train, they will be put off the train at the next station." :laugh:
 

classic33

Leg End Member
Prior to the general ban I worked in a building where it was banned from above, and they just had a smoking room that they thought no one would realise it was, except it had a glass partition in the coffee room and the roof tiles were yellow on one side or white on the other, plus the smell.

Since the ban I've not seen it in buildings just the occasional smoke on the bus, or in company vehicles.
Worked as a welder, when those above decided to ban smoking in the building. Certain parts I could understand, cardboard storage areas & the such areas. One was let go/finished when he refused to stop smoking.

Smoke alarms on local trains give a a warning in the guards cab.

Local hospital has signs at every entrance to the grounds that you are entering a No Smoking Zone, but they have placed a smoking area just outside the main entrance.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Worked as a welder, when those above decided to ban smoking in the building. Certain parts I could understand, cardboard storage areas & the such areas. One was let go/finished when he refused to stop smoking.

Smoke alarms on local trains give a a warning in the guards cab.

Local hospital has signs at every entrance to the grounds that you are entering a No Smoking Zone, but they have placed a smoking area just outside the main entrance.
I pass the entrance to a hospital quite regularly as it's near a friends house. And just around the corner they all smoke (staff, patients and visitors) on the street corner and then dump the cigarette butts on the ground, it looks a right mess, and nobody seems to be responsible for clearing it up.
 

Ganymede

Veteran
Location
Rural Kent
How does your workplace enforce no smoking indoors, and how successful have they been at doing this?

I've just had to send an email to the building management of the building of which my employer is one of the tenants, to remind them that a door separating one of the indoor cafes from an outdoor smoking area really needs to be kept closed. It's not the first time I've had to mention this to them, and it gets frustrating that they don't appear to take it seriously.

There is also a smoking problem in the ground-level carpark, which I walk through twice a day because the bicycle cage is down there. Again, the building management don't enforce no smoking in there rigorously enough. It's illegal by Victorian State law for any building owners to allow smoking indoors, unless they've applied for and been granted an exemption, e.g. for a dedicated smoking area of some kind. My building definitely has no such exemption for its carpark, so they're obliged to prevent people smoking in this carpark.

Note: I'm not trying to start any debate about the pros and cons of smoking, only about prevention of smoking indoors, and keeping areas smoke free when they're meant to be smoke free.
Can the door from the cafe to the outside smoking area be made self-closing?
 
OP
OP
Shut Up Legs

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
Can the door from the cafe to the outside smoking area be made self-closing?
It already is, but like a lot of these self-closing doors, if you push it out far enough it stays open. I've even walked up to it and pushed it closed a few times. No doubt they think I'm a leftist whinging greenie, but I'd rather be unpopular than be breathing second-hand smoke.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Local hospital has signs at every entrance to the grounds that you are entering a No Smoking Zone, but they have placed a smoking area just outside the main entrance.
Calderdale Royal Hospital? I spent 9 days in there in 2012 in a ward on an upper floor, about 50 metres away from the smoking shelter in the car park, and about 20 metres higher. When the wind was blowing the wrong way, the smoke fumes blew across the car park and up into the ward. Given that I was in there suffering from a near-fatal lung problem and was already struggling to breathe, I was less than impressed to have my air polluted by smoke!

One old chap in my ward with a serious smoking-related condition asked a nurse where he could have a smoke. She told him that there was nowhere in the hospital where he could - it is illegal! She told him about the smoking shelter, but he was too ill to get down there. She turned her back for a moment and he opened a window, leaned out of it and lit up. He got a right telling off when she smelled the smoke, turned round and saw what he was doing!

A porter took me in a wheelchair to have a CT scan done and I told him about the old smoker. He laughed and told me that one desperate young smoker got his mates to wheel his bed out of the hospital so he could have a cigarette at the smoking area!
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
I have an office in a large multi-business building. We all get along very well. Nobody would dob another business in it if there was a whiff of smoke in the corridor, but peer pressure seems to keep it pretty much under control. Every so often, when working late, I get a hint of cigarette smoke. As an un-self-righteous ex-smoker and sympathiser, I rather like it.
 
Top Bottom