This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Smoking room" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Asmoking room (orsmoking lounge) is a room which is specifically provided and furnished forsmoking, generally in buildings where smoking is otherwise prohibited.

Smoking rooms can be found in public buildings such asairports, and in semi-public buildings such as workplaces.^[1] Such rooms are commonly equipped with chairs,ashtrays and ventilation^[2], and are usually free to enter, although there may be asmoking age restriction. Acigarette company sometimes sponsors these smoking rooms, displaying its brand names on the room walls and financing the room or its maintenance.^[3] Cigarette companies have worked hard to ensure smoking was accommodated in major airports, which are high-profile locations serving many people who are often bored or nervous. Initially, providing smoking and no smoking areas was their goal, but when that policy failed they fell back on ventilated smoking rooms.^[4]

Field studies of enclosed smoking rooms in airports, including rooms with separate ventilation systems, have reported levels of fine particulate matter from second-hand smoke that exceed health-based air quality standards, and found that smoke particles can leak into adjacent non-smoking areas, exposing workers and members of the public. World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) analysis summarising this research states that designated smoking rooms and similar partial measures do not fully protect people in indoor public places from second-hand smoke.^[5]

When theCrimean War during the 1850s popularizedTurkish tobacco in Great Britain, smoking gained in fashionable popularity there but was considered indelicate.^[6] After dinner in a large private house, thegentlemen might retreat from the ladies to a smoking room, furnished withvelvet curtains and decorated to masculine tastes^[7] (wealthy owners would often choose Turkish themes and weapons collections), and replace his tail coat with a comfortable velvetsmoking jacket andcap. The velvet was intended to absorb the smoke, to avoid contaminating other rooms and clothes.^[8]

In the United Kingdom smoking became illegal on 1 July 2007 in any enclosed public place,^[9] so that smoking rooms cannot be provided and facilities must be outdoors; apart from private homes, almost the only legal exception is for smoking rooms in tobacconists where customers may sample the wares.^[10] Mental health units in theNHS providing long term in-patient care also have an exemption allowing the provision of designated smoking rooms for patients.^[11]

• Smoking ban
• Passive smoking

Wikimedia Commons has media related toSmoking rooms.

• Rooms
• Smoking

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from February 2009
• All articles needing additional references
• Commons category link is on Wikidata