Earlier this week, colleague Donald Wood wrote a story on Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean both deciding to lift their respective bans on smoking in their casinos.
It begs the question, should smoking even be allowed anywhere on cruise ships?
I know I'm about to alienate myself from 64 percent of the entire population of the United States - the 14 percent of people over the age of 18 who still smoke, and the 50 percent of people who like to scream about having their personal freedoms taken away - but here's my answer:
No.
Smoking shouldn't be allowed on cruise ships, in the casinos or even in so-called designated places.
By the way, this has nothing to do with the transmission of COVID-19, the reason that cruise lines enacted the ban on smoking in the first place, and everything to do with the simple fact that it just literally stinks. The smell from cigarette smoking gets on you, in your hair, on your clothing and just reeks to high heaven.
And I defy you to tell me that "designated smoking areas" are the answer. They aren't.
Maybe it's me. I have the most sensitive snout in the world and can pick up the stank of cigarette smoke from another car with even traveling at a fairly high rate of speed while driving.
I have absolutely nothing against smokers. My parents both smoked. I have family and friends who smoke. I have nothing against people practicing their civil liberties and personal freedoms, either.
There's no smoking in offices anymore, nor on airplanes, nor on Amtrak trains, nor on subways. Why should cruise lines be any different to appease the minority (14 percent) for the sake of the majority (86 percent)? And do we even need to get into the whole aspect of secondhand smoke and its potentially serious health consequences for non-smokers?
Look, again, I have no issues with smokers. You do you. Just don't do it around me in a public setting.
That's advice that the cruise lines should be taking to heart.
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