As smoking rates drop across the United States, many businesses and organizations, both locally and nationally, have proactively adopted smoke free meetings policies.
In Nevada, however, there’s still a ways to go with encouraging businesses to embrace smoke free policies, for meetings and otherwise.
For health-minded individuals there are a number of ways to advocate for their organizations to adopt smoke free policies for meetings and events.
“If your organization regularly holds meetings and events in venues that leave you smelling like an ashtray and breathing secondhand smoke, it may be time for you to advocate for a policy change,” said Cari Herington, executive director of Nevada Cancer Coalition. “It could be as easy as speaking to your organization’s event planner or human resources staff to request smoke free venues for future events.”
Additional ways individuals can advocate for smoke free meetings and event venues include making event organizers aware of the many smoke free venue options available; getting involved in the event planning process to have a say in venue selection; or providing feedback about venues in post-event surveys, either praising the smoke free location, or in the case of a smoky meeting venue requesting an alternate venue the next time around.
Smoke free advocates can also recognize those venues that are smoke free via a thanks or positive feedback on comment cards and online review sites.
Non-smokers make up 85 percent of Washoe County residents and a growing number of them want to protect themselves from secondhand smoke. Adopting a smoke free meetings policy and hosting events only in smoke free locations is a logical step.
To review the list of smoke free meeting and event venues in Washoe County and throughout the state, or to sign a smoke free meetings policy for an organization or business, visit SmokeFreeMeetings.org.
