Our local governments, of course, are quick to the rescue of nonsmokers.  In many cities, it is illegal to smoke in restaurants, bars, public buildings, subways, taxis, massage parlors, abandoned warehouses, roadside picnic areas and shoe-repair shops.  Other cities allow smoking in restaurants and bars, but only in designated smoking areas with air handlers capable of exchanging and filtering nine million cubic feet of air per minute, per smoker � which basically means each smoker must be provided with the equivalent of one of the vent hoods they use at Kentucky Fried Chicken, whose suction will remove any hat or toupee not secured to the smoker�s head with PolyGrip.  Every night you have to remove the filter and scrape out the cell phones, pocket change and crying infants.  In Calabasas, CA, it is now arguably illegal to smoke in your own back yard if you have neighbors within wafting distance, even if they are inside their homes watching Oprah.

But people still smoke in hotels, because for a smoker, nicotine is more important than sleep, or protection from the elements, or security, or anything else your guestroom offers.  Because smokers need a fix so badly, and nonsmokers are so disgusted by them, you must split your room inventory, reservations categories, restaurant/bar space, and practically everything else into �smoking� and �non-smoking.�  Put a smoking guest into a nonsmoking room and he will smoke anyway, using a bit of water in a drinking glass as an ashtray and flushing the evidence.  Put an ardent nonsmoker in a room that was smoked in three years ago last Sunday, and which has an ashtray buried in the nightstand drawer, and you will hear complaints about the room�s odor, safety, and dreadful carpet pattern.  Your housekeepers have cans of very expensive deodorizer that can mask the smell of a decaying buffalo sharing your phone booth, just so that you can have a little flexibility in room designation.

Now at least one major brand is crying, �Enough!  We will no longer allow anyone to smoke in our guestrooms, restaurants, loading docks, plumbing closets, elevator penthouses or anywhere else.�   Translation: �the approximately 23% of the population that smokes can just go somewhere else with their money.�  The idea is that the other 77% of the population will flock to this brand�s hotels, knowing that their lives won�t be shortened by an actuarial 13 seconds by secondhand smoke.

It�s a gutsy move.  And one which, if it succeeds, every other brand will copy, in the fine tradition of the hotel industry (examples: soon every hotel in the country will have free wi-fi access and better bedding than the Queen of Norway).  But this time, just following the no-smoker trend won�t work.  Smokers are a determined lot.  If we shut them out of hotel A, they will go to hotel B.  If we shut them out of both A and B, they will go to C, even if C is on the wrong side of the Interstate and has ugly wallpaper.  Shut them out of A, B and C, and they will sleep in their rental cars, shave in bus-station bathrooms, dress themselves in the shadowy places behind convenience store dumpsters.  Believe me, I know, I�m one of them.

So remember you heard it here, the next big thing: All-smoking hotels.  Want to grab 23% of your market practically overnight?  Drop that non-smoking chain affiliation and name your property �Le Nicotine.�  �Hackton Inn.�  �Emphysema Suites.�  �Coughyard by Marlboro.�  Put spittoons and ash urns everywhere.  Tear out that stupid health club and make a cigar room.  Splash your new skull-and-crossbones logo all over packs of complimentary matches.  Your Bic-flicking guests will be loyal to your hotel for the rest of their lives.

Even if that�s only a few days.