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SALT LAKE CITY — A bill that would shut down the smoking rooms at the Salt Lake City International Airport sailed smoothly through a Senate committee Friday.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to advance SB61 to the full Senate. If approved, the bill would altogether ban smoking in Salt Lake City's airport, and could go into effect January 2017.
No one at the Senate committee hearing spoke against the bill.
Jeanna Timgey, of Harrisville, was enjoying a cigarette in one of the airport's smoking lounges Friday when she was told about the bill. She said it would aggravate an already stressful travel experience for smokers.
"It's a nasty habit. We all know it is," she said. "But it's very addictive. You can't just tell somebody to quit."
Timgey said the smoking rooms should stay because they were created to allow everyone the right to clean air while also accommodating smokers.
"We compromised," she said. "And now they want to take away that compromise."
But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, was joined by a handful of health groups who supported the bill Friday, including the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association.
Vickers, a pharmacist, said Salt Lake City has become an "outlier," as one of only seven large airports in the U.S. that still allows smoking rooms.
"It seems to be the appropriate thing to do at the appropriate time," he said, indicating upcoming construction to rebuild the airport's terminals.
Currently, the Salt Lake City International Airport has five smoking lounges, but airport officials had planned to downsize to two when terminals are rebuilt. The construction completion date is slated for 2020.
Supporters have cited a 2012 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found smoking rooms at airports do not effectively prevent all smoke from escaping the ventilated rooms.
Jamie Riccobono, executive director of the American Lung Association of Utah, said a U.S. surgeon general's office study has found "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke."
"The only effective way to eliminate involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke is to completely eliminate smoking in all indoor areas," Riccobono said. "Air travelers and Salt Lake City airport employees deserve the right to breathe smoke-free air."
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has expressed support for the bill, taking the opposite position from the previous administration under Mayor Ralph Becker.
City officials under Becker had previously argued to keep the lounges to accommodate smokers who might otherwise smoke in improper areas or crowd screening lines by having to exit and re-enter security checkpoints to smoke outside.
But now, Biskupski's spokesman, Matthew Rojas, says the mayor sees the smoking rooms as a public health concern.
"We're supportive of the bill and happy it passed today," Rojas said, adding that the mayor is also supportive of allowing time for the city to phase out the smoking rooms.
Rojas said the city intends to launch an "education campaign" to inform the public of the changes, as well as make sure the space is used in a productive way once the smoking rooms are closed.
Matt Jones, a Salt Lake City resident who was smoking while waiting for his flight Friday, said before legislators decide to change the law, they should "come hang out in the smoking room and find out what the people want."
"Because that's really what matters," he said. "I've met people that might have a nicotine fit on the plane if they didn't have a place to stop and smoke. … (Smoking rooms) are probably the best thing about the Salt Lake City airport."
Contributing: Mike Anderson
