Airport smoking lounges: Here to stay?

You've probably seen the smoke-filled, glass-encased fishbowls that play host to smokers if you've passed through some of the nation's largest airports in recent years.

Perhaps you've cast a quick glance in its direction as you walked by, feeling contempt or maybe even a dash of pity for those poor slaves to a nasty habit.

But if you're a smoker with a mind to enter the fishbowl - and many shudder at the thought - you're likely grateful for the consideration as you puff away, contributing to the collective cloud enveloping you.

"Isn't this nice?" traveler Colleen Sherretta said of the concourse C smoking lounge at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, as others cycled through the sliding automatic door, filling the room to capacity. A cool draft circulated musty air around the lounge, whose walls were unadorned except for a hole into which you could insert your cigarette for a light; and a large window providing a view of the busy tarmac and a generous amount of natural light.

Smoking lounges can be comforting to a group of people accustomed to being pushed to the fringes. If there's one thing strangers in airport smoking lounges like to talk about, apart from tobacco price comparisons, it's the fact that they're in an airport smoking lounge.

"I'm glad they have one," Sherretta said cheerily during a recent midday connection from Savannah, Georgia, to Newark, New Jersey, as she stubbed out her Camel Blue. "They don't have these in Newark."

It's true, smoking is not allowed anywhere inside the airports operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, including Newark International. Twenty-two of the nation's 29 large-hub international airports are completely smoke-free inside the terminal, according to a Centers for Disease Control report released in November 2010.

The number of smoking lounges has decreased since 2002, when less than half of the nation's large-hub airports were smoke-free. But the 2010 report means that seven of the nation's largest airports - including the five busiest - still allow smoking inside the terminals, as do several other smaller airports. There are websites and travel forums devoted to the topic.

As long as smoking is legal in the United States, smoking lounges will continue to represent the tension between those who detest the addictive habit and those who can't quite rid themselves of it.

"As we're learning more about the tremendous dangers of smoking, fewer people are willing to tolerate exposure to second-hand smoke, which leads to smokers being pushed to the periphery," said licensed psychologist Clifford Lazarus. "But it is a right, people can smoke just like they can drink and have guns, it's just that the government is being a bit more controlling in terms of creating parameters in which people can engage in this marginalized behavior."