Reno/Tahoe International Airport plans to remove its smoking rooms, leaving some passengers fuming because they won’t have a place to light up once they pass security checkpoints.

Officials planned to make the airport smoke-free in 1992 but built two enclosed smoking rooms instead after protests from smokers, sympathetic non-smokers and tourism officials.

Now, the airport board has decided to eliminate those 10-year-old, glass-enclosed rooms to make way for expanded gift shops, airport officials said.

Smokers protested the plan.

“There needs to be an area past security where people can smoke,” said Judi Shereda of Reno, a smoker and frequent flyer.

“When I fly, I plan my trip around airports that have smoking sections on concourses. Air travel is stressful enough after Sept. 11 without being trapped without a smoking section. It’s discriminatory and it’s ridiculous, especially since they are doing it to sell more overpriced paperbacks and travel pillows.

“It’s greed, just greed,” she said.

Airport officials said the smoking room closures, which could begin as early a next week, are needed to produce more profits.

“We don’t want to inconvenience any passengers,” said Adam Mayberry, airport spokesman. “We need to increase revenue to sustain air service and operations.”

The move to make Reno a nonsmoking airport is another example of tightening restrictions on smokers across the nation, and local governments may adopt other new rules.

Washoe County voters will get to register their opinion Nov. 5 on an advisory question on whether smoking should be banned in schools, grocery stores, restaurants and government buildings. Another county advisory question asks whether the county should be allowed to adopt laws that are tougher than the state’s to regulate second-hand smoke, a process that isn’t legal now.

A Reno Gazette-Journal/News 4 poll showed 57 percent of Nevadans in favor of a state ban on smoking in public places, except casinos and bars.

Whether the elimination of smoking rooms at the airport could affect tourism is unclear.

But some smokers and non-smokers said the airport’s decision is sure to reduce tourism — and revenue.

It would come at a time when air travel at Reno-Tahoe airport declined 10 percent from August of last year to the same month this year.

“If they want their numbers to decline another 10 percent, banning smoking at the airport is a real good way to do it,” Shereda said.

She said gamblers will go to more smoker-friendly gaming venues, like Las Vegas or Indian casinos.

“As a smoker I vote with my feet and my wallet, and most other smokers I know do that, too.”

Surveys have shown about 30 percent of air travelers smoke, as compared to about 20 percent of the national population and 30 percent of Nevadans. Among gamblers, the percentage of smokers is even higher, gaming experts have said.

But airport officials said their hands are tied.

Smoking rules hardship, some say

Mayberry said the smoking room on the B Concourse could be gone as early as next week and one on the C Concourse will follow within a month or two.

“Travelers Gifts is expanding, and we are a small airport so there’s nowhere else for them to go,” he said. “We won’t be a smoke-free airport, because there’s a smoking section in the Brew Brothers bar in the terminal.”

That bar is only yards from the airport’s outside doors, where people already congregate to smoke. Both locations are on the non-secure side of the security gates, so smokers said the airport effectively will become a nonsmoking facility.

They said they still would have to take their luggage to the terminal and then go back through security areas to the concourse, running risks of long delays and missed flights. They predicted that smokers going back and forth through security will add to long lines and waiting times.

The new smoking policy also is a hardship for people who work on the concourses, an employee of Olympic Security said.

“We get a 15-minute break and if I go outside I’ve got to pass back through security like everyone else,” said Michael Brown a baggage screener at the airport. “There’s no way I can go outside, have a smoke, and get back through security in 15 minutes. I’ll be trapped here all day.”

Candy Peterson of Omaha, who was in an airport smoking room on Saturday, said she wouldn’t come back to Reno to gamble after the rooms are eliminated.

“Why is Reno expanding the borders of California?” she asked, referring to that state’s tough anti-smoking policies. “I can drive to Indian casinos from where I live, so I don’t need to go to Reno if I’m going to get aggravated at the airport.

“If I want Nevada casinos, I’ll fly to Las Vegas where you can smoke in bars or enclosed rooms on the concourses.”

Nation’s airports: mixed smoking rules

Doing away with airport smoking lounges could have unintended consequences, according to passenger groups.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said the rooms alleviate added stress smokers face while flying. Although he is a non-smoker, he said he supports the lounges.

“Flying in and of itself is an anxiety-laden experience,” Stempler said. “It is filled with deadlines. There is a lot of tension associated with the security process.”

A check by the Reno Gazette-Journal of the nation’s 10 busiest airports shows that six have smoking areas on concourses beyond the security checkpoints and four do not. Some airports, including Denver International, initially banned smoking but added smoking areas in ventilated bars after travelers complained.

A survey of 38 airports this year by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. found that 21 have smoking areas past the security gates and 17 do not.

Organizations including Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights are fighting to extend indoor smoking bans to all airports. Smokers’ rights groups, often backed by tobacco companies, are lobbying airports to install more enclosed, ventilated rooms for smokers.

Smokers interviewed Tuesday said the issue is a matter of accommodation and compromise. They said it affects everyone who travels by air.

“Nonsmokers should be concerned too,” said Shereda, who said she called the Airport Authority of Washoe County six times Tuesday to complain about the loss of the rooms but got no return calls.

“The airport’s policy will create longer lines and waits at security checkpoints and more stressed-out passengers,” she said.

She said the airport board should “wake up and accommodate smokers” as it did when the smoking rooms were installed in 1992.

“There has got to be compromise,” she said. “Glass-in a concourse bar like they did in the terminal. Build an enclosed deck like they have in New York and other airports. The smokers are paying for a service and they deserve consideration, especially now that air travel has become a more torturous and stressful process than ever.”