Smokers vs. Non-SmokersOccasionally we get hate-mail or phone calls from smokers who do not like our smoke-free policy. This policy has been in place for almost nine years now and we have no intention of changing it. We were the first hotel in the area to have a smoke-free policy. For many years we were the only smoke-free facility in the Mt. Rushmore area. However, in recent years other properties have also become smoke-free. It is now a trendy issue in the lodging industry. Most smoke-free properties have the policy because smoke-free is popular with the majority of guests. In other words, it is a decision based on profits. That was never our motive however. We simply don't like smoke. Being a little family run place we don't want to smell it. We don't want to clean up after it. We don't want to repair the damage from it. Period ... end of story. The policy came about one day when this writer was out picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot. Many smokers seen to think that if they flick their cigarette butts onto the ground the butts will magically disappear. They don't. Each one has to be individually swept up. If they are in the shrubbery you have to bend over and pick them up with your fingers. Now ... maybe some folks think this is a fun way to exercise. We don't. So forgive us if we get somewhat prickly. That said, you might think we don't like smokers. You would be wrong. There are lots of very nice people who, for one reason or another, still smoke. They are courteous and considerate towards others when they do it. They don't trash the place and they don't expect other people to pick up after them. We still wish they would stop smoking for the sake of their own health and the well-being of their loved ones. But it is a choice they, as responsible adults, have the right to make. Also, from an actuarial perspective, smoking may be a good thing. "Huh?" you say. Some years ago the "Economist" magazine ran a cost-vs.-benefit analysis of smoking. Their conclusion was that in countries that provide old-age pension schemes for their citizens (i.e. Social Security) the benefits of a large smoking population outweighed the costs. You can go on-line and find the article for yourself, but the synapsis goes something like this: The damaging health effects of smoking take upwards of 30 years to materialize. Thus, people who smoke generally remain healthy through their most productive years. It is not until they near retirement that they become ill from smoking. The average period of medical care for smoke related illness is about two years then the patient suffers a premature death. As a result the person is not collecting retirement benefits for the next 15 to 25 years which is a greater savings than the cost of two years of medical care. You may think this a very cruel way to look at the issue of smoking. But, in fact, insurance company actuaries see things this way all the time. Nobody said insurance companies were nice. It gets better. During a smoker's active years, he pays tens of thousands of dollars to the government in the form of taxes on tobacco products. (Make no mistake, governments are really hooked on these taxes.) These taxes are inherently unfair and regressive and presumably lower the tax burden on non-smokers who statistically have higher incomes. Governments get away with this because the highly addictive nature of tobacco products makes demand (to use a term from economics) inelastic. In a nutshell this means non-smokers pay less in taxes and receive more in benefits. Any non-smoker without a social conscience ought to like that. Now a word from the other side: (This is the complete, unedited text of email we got recently from someone who doesn't like our policy. Enjoy.) Attn: Family who owns this hotel We are traveling through late this summer and need a place to stay for 4 nights. I spent quite a bit of time checking out your hotel web site. I went all the way through the web site and then saw the smoking policy - which I believe you should put on the very first page and in the description with the Keystone Chamber & other search engines so people don't waste their time looking through the whole thing, like I did. This really ticked me off - as you can see. Normally, polite civilized hotel/motel/B&B/Cabin owners put it up front for people to see - I don't have a problem with them. Obviously, you are huge jerks there at the Roosevelt Inn. Not only are you an extremely rude family, I'm sure that you lose a lot of business with this extremely prejudiced anti-smoker policy. I don't believe for an instant that "guests have expressed a preference" for this type of prejudism - this is just a retarded political statement put out there by your pitiful family - and I especially don't need you to "sympathize" with me. I sympathize with your close mindedness and lack of good judgement, and pity any offspring that is brought into this world by you horrible discriminating people. I can only hope your place catches fire someday by some idiot non-smoker with a faulty wire on their curling iron - you really deserves something like that to happen. Your types make my skin crawl, pious, righteous jerks - just look at what you say on your web pages about other businesses and yourselves. Who the hell are you people and who cares what you blab on about? I can tell you, right up front - nobody & no one. You are nobody important in the world, and obviously you know it. I can tell that's why you feel like you are really something when you put your stupid "policy" out there - you filled up the whole page with so much blithering babble policy description and on every page of the web site. It's very obvious that you people think you really have something there, when all you really do is come off like jerks. The whole website is like that - a feeble attempt for you (the owners) to get your opinions out there, and it all reads like it's coming from very insecure and insignificant people. Ridiculous, and not clever in the slightest. Well, the Good Lord will have something to say to you people about being so hateful, if you get there. I'm sure that we will find a lovely place somewhere with managers who appreciate all good people, with no prejudices, and we will happily dump out all our ashtrays all over your parking lot (and you too if we see you) on the way by, every day we are there. Don't bother replying, I won't open the email. I don't want to hear another word from any of your "family" of blithering idiots. (name removed) |