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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
There's one less place visitors to Yellowknife can light up - hotels rooms at the Explorer Hotel. The establishment initiated its new policy on Jan. 1.

Receptionist Jill Law stands at the front desk of the Explorer Hotel on Monday. A smoke-free sign is on prominent display in the lobby. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo

General manager Jamie Bolduc said the hotel is following the lead of hotels in the south that are going smoke-free.

"We also did a partial poll to our smoking customers, to which they responded back that they can't smoke at other hotels they go to, so it wasn't a big deal for them to not smoke here," he said.

Before the change, the hotel had one floor partially open to smoking. Bolduc said it's surprising how many people who smoke actually come into the hotel and ask for a non-smoking room.

"Not that they smoke in them, but smokers don't want to smell other people's smoke either," he said.

He said smokers are allowed to smoke a few metres from the front entrance, while staff who smoke have a designated area in the back of the building.

"Here we are into the second week in February and it hasn't really hurt us at all," said Bolduc of the change.

Anyone who smokes in a room at the Explorer Hotel is charged $175, not as hefty a fine as Super 8 Motel where smokers must dole out $300 and are evicted for smoking.

Deborah Hudson, general manager of Super 8 Motel in Yellowknife, said the motel has been smoke-free since at least 2006.

She said the rationale behind the policy is for the care of the patrons, and cost.

"It's cheaper from a damage point of view. Then you have the people who don't smoke, living with people who do smoke. There's less aggravation for those who don't smoke," she said.

The new Days Inn and Suites is also 100 per cent non-smoking. Other hotels in the city juggle rooms or floors that are smoking and non-smoking. Nova Court offers half of the second floor as smoking. The Yellowknife Inn has a smoking wing on the fourth floor and the Discovery Inn supplies two floors that are smoking and one floor that is non-smoking.

According to the NWT Tobacco Control Act, smoking is prohibited in indoor public places with some exceptions, one of which is "a room in a hotel, motel or other place where rooms are rented for private residential accommodation, provided the room is, at the time it is rented, designated and specifically set aside as a room in which smoking is permitted."

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