My staff smells like cigarrette smoke

This drives me nuts, but I can't say NO SMOKING, I just have female waitstaff, they all smoke. It's one thing to smell the smoke of a BBQ joint, quite another to smell stale cig smoke on someones hand and clothes, as they serve you...Your thoughts!

Heard on the news today that more and more companies are not hiring smokers.  One of the arguments was that hospitals don't want the carcinogens carried in by their workers, but said nothing about the carcinogens carried in by patients or visitors who smoke.
 
I'm a smoker and I completely understand how Mar felt when she went to work and was told she smelled like smoke even though she doesn't smoke.  I have since switched to the electronic cigarette.  No smell, no carcinogens, no tar.
 
So, in answer to your question, you can say NO SMOKING but then you'd have to hire a whole new staff.  However, the new staff may be offended by the smoker customer who they can smell when they serve them.

Interesting subject....I am a smoker, however I am very sensitive to non smokers...I dont ever smoke around people, I have a body spray AND breath spray, and dont feel the need to smoke, period. By the way, no one gets cancer from someone smoking.

^^^I wonder about second hand smoke causing cancer. My paternal grandfather was a heavy smoker and my  late father was never around tobacco smoke as an adult. He had asthma and being around tobacco smoke would cause him to have  an asthma attack. He died of small cell carcinoma lung cancer, which is known as smoker's cancer. Supposedly 99% of the people who die of small cell carcinoma lung cancer are smokers. 3 other people who lived on the same street as my father died of small cell carcinoma lung cancer.  Two of them did not smoke.

I doubt I'd ever find anyone who would agree that smog is actually the culprit instead of second hand smoke.  The smog is so heavy here that I often wash the black oily smut off the patio/balcony/cars.  There's a real fine black coating on everything and I'm smart enough to know that if it's on everything, then I'm breathing it in with every breath.  

If I walk into a place that has the slightest hint of cigarette smoke, I turn around and walk out. 100% of the time.
Saves me a lot of money by keeping me out of the Indian Casino's!

chewingthefat


This drives me nuts, but I can't say NO SMOKING, I just have female waitstaff, they all smoke. It's one thing to smell the smoke of a BBQ joint, quite another to smell stale cig smoke on someones hand and clothes, as they serve you...Your thoughts!

How do you think they would react if you told them basically what you wrote here, framing it as a customer service issue?  For example, asking them to wash their hands after having had a cigarette because the hands are likely to come closest to the paying customer.
 
Brad

Nice part about living in a state with no smoking laws. Restaurants used to be a big problem and so often you had to walk through the smoking area to get to the non smoking area.

ScreamingChicken

chewingthefat


This drives me nuts, but I can't say NO SMOKING, I just have female waitstaff, they all smoke. It's one thing to smell the smoke of a BBQ joint, quite another to smell stale cig smoke on someones hand and clothes, as they serve you...Your thoughts!

How do you think they would react if you told them basically what you wrote here, framing it as a customer service issue?  For example, asking them to wash their hands after having had a cigarette because the hands are likely to come closest to the paying customer.

Brad

I'm the only non smoker here, it seems like every female I've ever hired smokes, not so much male workers, it's impossible in this neck of the woods to find all non smoking help and to expect them to wash their hands after smoking is not realistic, but a good suggestion, I'm going to give it a shot...thanks Brad!

I'ma smoker who hasn't smoked since 9:30 a.m. on Jan 2, 1993. I'm sorry they passed a law here a few years ago banning smoking in bars and restaurants. I miss the wonderful aroma. I love having a server wait on me who just finished smoking a cigarette.

Michael Hoffman


I'ma smoker who hasn't smoked since 9:30 a.m. on Jan 2, 1993. I'm sorry they passed a law here a few years ago banning smoking in bars and restaurants. I miss the wonderful aroma. I love having a server wait on me who just finished smoking a cigarette.

You must have loved Stan's on Morse Rd then.  I loved that place but the smoke was so heavy in there that even after the law was passed, that's all you could smell.

 I've never been a smoker, but I have to say that I've lived thru all the years that "smoking at the dinner-table or in a restaurant" was an accepted habit.  Then the the years of " Smoking or Non-Smoking" table choices in restaurants. Now the No Smoking sign is up in most of the places we go.  It has only been in the past few years that I seem to have become more sensitive to the 'used tobacco odor' that remains after smoking has happened in the area. I can't explain my new-found distaste for that odor...since for 60 years or so I paid it no attention at all.

The food was good at Stan's, but it wasn't one of my favorite places. Smoke, though, had nothing to do with that. Stan's stopped serving breakfast at 11 a.m. That stopped me from going often.
 
Of course it doesn't matter now. It's an empty lot, except for the parked trucks and the guy selling hideous rugs and towels.

Michael Hoffman


The food was good at Stan's, but it wasn't one of my favorite places. Smoke, though, had nothing to do with that. Stan's stopped serving breakfast at 11 a.m. That stopped me from going often.

Of course it doesn't matter now. It's an empty lot, except for the parked trucks and the guy selling hideous rugs and towels.

 Michael, All you rich people are the same, always the same complaint " The butler didn't get me up until noon", Yadda Yadda Yadda.......
 
Chewy, try finding non smokers in this business, you will be waiting tables yourself. I agree with you, I wouldn't want my wait staff reeking of smoke when they came to wait on a table...............pnwc

ScreamingChicken

chewingthefat


This drives me nuts, but I can't say NO SMOKING, I just have female waitstaff, they all smoke. It's one thing to smell the smoke of a BBQ joint, quite another to smell stale cig smoke on someones hand and clothes, as they serve you...Your thoughts!

How do you think they would react if you told them basically what you wrote here, framing it as a customer service issue?  For example, asking them to wash their hands after having had a cigarette because the hands are likely to come closest to the paying customer.

Brad

They better be washing their hands after they smoke, thats part of the Health dept rules. You can't stop them from smoking, you can tell them you don't want them smell like smoke while waiting on your customers. Let them figure it out...............pnwc

I am a smoker who regularly works closely with actors (I do work as a dresser fairly often). Some shows require us to Febreze our clothes after smoking and wash our hands. Which we do, without complaint. You could go the route a few places around here have, where employees are not allowed to smoke during their shift, period. On the way in, after they leave...fine. But not during work.
 
I'd think being servers you could easily tell them they have to wash their hands after smoking. After all, they have to smoke outside (I'm assuming), so they really should be washing their hands before handling customers' food anyway. 

My dear PNWCHEF, if my butler ever allowed me to sleep till noon he'd be looking for another job. I insist upon being awakened no later than 5:30 each morning, except during hunting seasons, when 3:30 a.m. is the norm.

Michael Hoffman


I'ma smoker who hasn't smoked since 9:30 a.m. on Jan 2, 1993. I'm sorry they passed a law here a few years ago banning smoking in bars and restaurants. I miss the wonderful aroma. I love having a server wait on me who just finished smoking a cigarette.

Do you feel the same about Cigars? Actually I picture you filling your Pipe with say, Prince Albert!

chewingthefat

Michael Hoffman


I'ma smoker who hasn't smoked since 9:30 a.m. on Jan 2, 1993. I'm sorry they passed a law here a few years ago banning smoking in bars and restaurants. I miss the wonderful aroma. I love having a server wait on me who just finished smoking a cigarette.

Do you feel the same about Cigars? Actually I picture you filling your Pipe with say, Prince Albert!

One of my great pleasures was smoking a good cigar after a meal. Another was lighting my pipe during a break in bird hunting.
 
Oh, no Prince Albert. During the last years I smoked Borkum Riff. Before that I used to order a special blend from the Owl Shop in New Haven.
 
 

PNWCHEF


Chewy, try finding non smokers in this business, you will be waiting tables yourself.

I remember reading something a number of years ago about how people in the restaurant industry were more likely to smoke and drink than people in other lines of work, but unfortunately I can't remember more than that and a web search turned up nothing.
 
My first job was as a busboy back in the early '80s and it does seem like quite a few of the kitchen and wait staff were smokers.
 
Brad

I guess I am really naive, but I have to say I was surprised when I parked behind restaurants and saw staff (including chefs) puffing away out behind the kitchen/dining room.  I would EXPECT that they'd wash their hands before returning to work.  It's news to me that sometimes waitstaff apparently aren't required to. 
 
I, too, am old enough to remember when smoking in restaurants as well as bars was the norm. My mother was a smoker, and that was part of her routine.  Even as a child, I hated it.  She smoked in the car, too.  When we went on roadtrips, I always felt carsick, and never had breakfast in the motel restaurant because I always felt nauseated as soon as we walked in.  When  I was a senior in high school, and went to the Coliseum in Indianapolis early one morning for my graduation rehearsal, some of my classmates were smoking in the foyer.  The smoke hit me - WHAM! - and I finally realized that my nausea all those years was caused by a combination of active and stale cigarette smoke, both in the car and in the restaurant.  I guess I was better able to tolerate it later in the day, as I don't recall a similar problem at dinnertime.
 
The thing that astonishes me, in retrospect, is that smoking was allowed  on airplanes for so many years.  No matter where you sat, you couldn't avoid the smoke, especially on long international flights.
 
In Britain, up until a few years ago, smoking was allowed in cinemas, in designated smoking sections.

rumaki

In Britain, up until a few years ago, smoking was allowed in cinemas, in designated smoking sections.

 
I remember going to the movies as a teen (1960's) and the seats had small ashtrays in the arm rests. 
 
My in laws were smokers and whenever we returned from a weekend at their house we would have to wash everything we had on or brought home including the backpack we would bring our clothes in. We've had no smoking laws in Illinois now for several years and I seem to see fewer and fewer employees hanging around doors smoking. It is so nice not to have to worry about that smell when we go out to eat anymore.

My husband was a smoker, and there is nothing like getting in a cold car in the winter and having him light a cigarette. The kids and I would be gasping, and even opening a window a bit didn't help much.

We begged him not to light up in the car, but the habit was too strong. He couldn't do anything without lighting a cigarette first.

I ( the non-smoker ) feel smokers are so ingrained to the motions of smoking, that the consideration, in any form, for others gets lost.

I apologize if I offend anyone.

Tumbleweed365


I ( the non-smoker ) feel smokers are so ingrained to the motions of smoking, that the consideration, in any form, for others gets lost.

 
It depends on the smoker, and making a generalizing statement like that about all smokers is as silly as me saying all women can cook or all men know how to fix cars.

You go, felix!!!!!!!!!!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the cost of smoking.
I quit around 1998. At the time I smoked 2 to 2 1/2 packs a day and would go across the stateline to Virginia to buy a carton for about $7-8 bucks.
Today here in Florida cartons of name brand cigarettes are close to $50 bucks a carton. If I were still smoking today I would be spending about $75 a week or $300 a month just for my habit.
It actually hard to understand how the average waitperson or kitchen staff can even afford to smoke.

A pack of Marlboro is 8 bucks and change here. If you drive out to the reservation about 45 min from here, a carton is $55

Any smoker who thinks he can wash his hands, body spray, breath spray, chew mints, whatever to disguise the smoke is only fooling himself. A non-smoker can still detect the odor and it is generally nauseating to a non-smoker. The Mayor mentioned it was not a problem for many years but I think since the odor is less ubiquitous now because of all the smoking restrictions and bans that it is just more acute and objectionable when detected.
 
I never let anyone smoke in my house except for my mother. When she came to visit it took me several weeks before I could quit detecting the odor.

One of my favorite signs I've seen in a restaurant -  "Having a no smoking section in a restaurant is like having a no peeing section in a pool".

Davydd-vinegar helps with getting rid of the odor. Wipe down windowsills, etc, or simply wave a rag soaked in vinegar around each room. Works well.