TIA passengers now can step outside to smoke
New patios give smokers relief from an indoor smoking ban that made it tough to puff before flights.
By JEAN HELLER
Published July 10, 2004
TAMPA - For Bob Monaco it was just a convenience. For some passengers at Tampa International Airport, it could be the difference between enjoying a flight or clawing the seat cushions.
On Friday afternoon at Airside D, TIA opened the first of what will be eight outdoor smoking areas for passengers who want to light up before boarding flights. Seven of the outdoor patios will be in the five airside buildings, and one will be on a rooftop outside the Landside terminal.
The projects are in response to the state's year-old ban on indoor smoking, a law that locked the doors on the airport's smoking rooms, even though they were ventilated separately from the rest of the buildings.
Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority and an ex-smoker of 20 months, has been trying to find a way to accommodate customers who start feeling the pangs of nicotine withdrawal between the time they board shuttles to the airsides and the time they emerge from airports at the other end of their flights.
"It wasn't that difficult once we decided what could be done," Miller said. "We had to find a way to build the outdoor patios in such a way that the people using them couldn't have any contact with anyone who hadn't been through security."
The patio that opened Friday at Airside D was the easiest to do because it was the least elaborate. That airside, home to JetBlue Airways, AirTran and Spirit Airlines, will be torn down next June, about six weeks after the new Airside C opens.
The small patio is on a rooftop, surrounded by an 8-foot chain link fence. There are ashtrays but no seating and no roof. It is to the left of the security lanes.
The heat of a direct afternoon sun didn't stop Monaco from using it on a smoking break from his job as a screener for the Transportation Security Administration.
"I could go downstairs to a restricted area and smoke, but customers don't have that option because they don't have time to go back to the main terminal," Monaco said. "And this is more convenient. The sun's too hot, and there are no seats, but our smoking breaks aren't that long."
Miller said he didn't expect that smokers would let rain deter them from using the patio, either, although they will get wet.
"We couldn't put a roof on it and still use it for smoking," he said. "A roof would have qualified it as an indoor space where people can't smoke."
More elaborate smoking patios will open at the other airsides Sept. 15. Airsides A and F will have one each. Airside E will have two. And two have been incorporated in the plans for Airside C, which is on schedule to open in April.
The rooftop patio outside the Landside terminal will sit where the shuttle lobby used to be for the old Airside B, which has been torn down. In the Landside terminal, smokers also can still step outside to the sidewalks on levels one, two and three.