County Plans to Push Smokers Away from Entrances

Chester County employees and visitors to the county’s various buildings will have to haul their ashes away from public entrances if a new smoking policy is adopted Wednesday by county commissioners. The policy would forbid smokers from lighting up within 25 feet of any entrance to a county building, including the privately owned West Market Street building in West Chester where the county has administrative offices. Smoking would be permitted only in designated areas out of the way of the public. The new policy was suggested by the county’s Wellness Committee, made up of employees in the county’s Health Department and its Human Resources Department, said Karen Florentine, county human resources director. “What is happening is that people are having to walk though a cloud of smoke in order to enter our buildings,” Florentine told the commissioners at their work session Tuesday. The new policy came as a result of “concerns … expressed about having to move through smoking areas,” she said later. If adopted Wednesday, as is expected, the new policy would become effective immediately at the county Government Services Center in West Goshen, where a designated area has already been identified, said Steve Fromnick, the county’s director of facilities management. It would take effect later for the county Justice Center, county prison, its two libraries, and other buildings where no smoking area has yet been set. One county employee, who smokes regularly outside the Justice Center and who asked not to be named, shrugged when shown the proposed new policy. “I don’t have a problem with that,” the employee said. “I guess it doesn’t really look too good when people go by and see people standing outside smoking.” The county commissioners banned smoking in county offices and buildings several years ago, forcing smokers to stand outside. As with many office buildings, that means those entering must pass by groups of smokers. Many nonsmokers object to that, saying that they are made to breathe in the harmful smoke just to get indoors. “Slip-stream smoke has been identified as a health hazard,” said commissioners Chairman Terence Farrell. “People who come into our buildings through a fog of smoke are being endangered even though they don’t smoke."