Why allow smoking in bedrooms?

Caterer recently listed the exemptions from the smoking ban (Caterer, 23 February, page 11). I was shocked to see that smoking in hotel bedrooms will still be allowed.

The danger of fires resulting from guests smoking in bedrooms is massive. It will put themselves and often hundreds of others at risk.

I'm not aware of the statistics (or indeed that there are any) to show exactly how many hotel fires start from a cigarette in a bedroom, but it must be a devastating proportion.

We own two busy hotels, the Petersham in Richmond, Surrey (60 beds), and the Elvetham in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire (70 beds). Both have strong weekend wedding markets, and in the early hours it's worrying to witness the overindulged guests stumble towards their bedrooms, many of whom light up the moment they've grasped the basic principle of a key card.

This is a deadly oversight. Are we really happy in the industry to allow this deathtrap to continue? What's the point in having such an exemption?

At our own hotels, despite much debate, we don't feel able to totally ban guests from smoking in bedrooms simply because of market forces. If we did, guests who want to smoke would take their business elsewhere. But if we did take the jump, how could we really enforce it?

We need the strength of the law behind us to make a bedroom ban work, and as an industry, we need to be united.

Am I alone on this one?

Greville Dare
Proprietor, the Elvetham and the Petersham

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