Greensboro's PTIA to ban smoking in all areas

GREENSBORO — Smoking will soon no longer be allowed anywhere in the terminal at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority made the decision Tuesday in a unanimous vote during its monthly board meeting.

Ted Johnson, the executive director at PTI, said in an interview that the board decided to prohibit smoking inside the terminal in response to the new state law that bans smoking in bars and restaurants.

The statewide ban will take effect Jan. 2. The airport authority will no longer allow smoking inside the PTI terminal starting Sept. 1. Current rules at PTI ban smoking in all public areas of the terminal, except the bar area in the central section of the building and the adjacent smoking lounge.

Johnson said he has not received any complaints about the board's decision, unlike in 2000 when a lot of people complained about the airport's ban on smoking in the terminal, except for two bars and a smoking room. Back then, PTI allowed smoking on both concourses.

"Now, it's pretty well expected that's the way it's going to be," he said of the new rules.

Smokers at PTI had mixed reactions to the change.

Troy Brown, who had just returned a rental car, was waiting in the smoking lounge with his daughter, Johanna, for a ride home.

Brown said he is all for no smoking in public areas at the airport but is concerned that the lounge will soon be off-limits.

"I'll probably have to pick another airport to fly out of, if possible," said Brown, who lives in Walnut Cove.

Still, he said, as long as the airport will allow people to smoke outside, he will be fine.

Rai Alexander of Greensboro was in the lounge trying to get a look at his son, Jordan, on his new job with JetStream Ground Services at the airport. "Nonsmokers, I believe, have the right to not have to smell a smoker's smoke," said Alexander, who describes himself as a social smoker. "But there are a lot of smokers out there, and there ought to be a place for them away from nonsmokers."

Tony Campbell, the bartender at the sports bar at PTI, says he believes that the new smoking rules will affect his business but he is sure that smokers will find a way to smoke, even if they have to go outside.

A lot of his smoking customers from other states where smoking is prohibited already do just that.

"The only time it's going to matter," Campbell said, "is when it's cold."