Local employers move to snuff out smoking, indoors and out

Business

Related Photos

Salem Hospital has a policy of no smoking anywhere on the inside or outside. Mark Teiwes/Staff photos
A woman smokes on the edge of the NSMC Salem Hospital grounds along Highland Avenue.

Discussion

The Salem News has a real-name policy for commenting. Users may sign in using the Facebook Connect tool above the comments field. Once your first comment is posted by a moderator, all future comments will post automatically. If you prefer not to use Facebook, send an e-mail with your comments user name (which must be the same as your real name), city or town, street address and daytime phone number to comments@salemnews.com. A staff member will contact you directly to confirm your identity. It may take a day or two before you can post comments. Only your user name will be public. All users are required to follow our rules for commenting, which can be found here.

comments powered by Disqus

March 23, 2011

By Ethan Forman Staff writer The Salem News Wed Mar 23, 2011, 05:00 AM EDT

Come July 1, you will no longer be allowed to light up on the local campuses of light maker Osram Sylvania.

The company already bans smoking inside its buildings, as required by state law. In July it will extend the ban outside to its entire campus, including its headquarters on Endicott Street in Danvers and two separate facilities in the Cherry Hill Industrial Park in Beverly and Danvers.

Turns out, Osram Sylvania is not the only large North Shore employer going tobacco-free.

General Electric in Lynn, Salem State University, and both Salem and Beverly hospitals all have, or are about to have, campus-wide smoking bans. Other local employers still allow smokers to gather under shelters and puff away, as long as they do not congregate around doors and windows.

A spokeswoman for Osram Sylvania declined to comment on the company's new policy, which will ban smoking in doorways, outdoor foyers, lawns, parking lots and even inside cars when on company property. The ban applies to employees — Osram Sylvania has 700 of them in Beverly, Danvers and Woburn — and visitors.

To help employees kick the habit, Osram Sylvania is offering free access to a tobacco-cessation program.

It's a pattern being repeated at other major employers looking to kick the habit among their workers, in an effort to promote better health and keep down the costs of health insurance.

General Electric is expected to go tobacco-free in November, according to Rich Gorham, spokesman for the GE Aviation plant in Lynn, where about 3,400 full- and part-time employees work.

Presently, employees are allowed to smoke outside as long they stand at least 20 feet away from a door or a window. "The next iteration is there will be no smoking on campus," Gorham said.

Setting an example

Since November 2008, North Shore Medical Center has banned smoking at its Salem Hospital campus, where 3,000 people work. The smoking ban also extends to patients and visitors.

"If you want to smoke, you have to go to Highland Avenue or Dove Avenue," said spokesman Kevin Ronningen, referring to streets near the hospital.

Most employees and patients respect the ban, he said, but visitors often have to be reminded by security to put out their smokes.

The hospital's smoking ban is driven by health concerns.

"It's a health care facility," said Ronningen. "We have to set an example." The hospital has even removed so-called "butt huts" from its campus.

This past October, Beverly Hospital went smoke-free as part of an initiative by its parent, Northeast Hospital Corp., to ban smoking at all its facilities, including its medical and day surgery center in Danvers. The ban in Beverly and Danvers extends to more than 2,000 employees.

"We are entirely tobacco-free on all of our hospital campuses," said Cynthia Cafasso Donaldson, vice president of ancillary services at Northeast Hospital Corp.

Patients had been allowed to smoke in designated areas in the past, but that is no longer the case. The hospital has programs so patients and employees can get nicotine replacement products, and employees are offered smoking cessation classes.

"We wanted to eliminate the risk of second-hand smoke," said Donaldson. The American Cancer Society attributes 46,000 deaths a year to heart disease in nonsmokers who have been exposed to smoke from other people's cigarettes.

"We should be the leaders in this type of effort," Donaldson said.

Salem State University is going smoke-free as of Sept. 1, said Karen Cady, the university's spokeswoman.

Presently, if you want to light up at Salem State, you have to walk 25 feet away from buildings.

The university gave its students, faculty, administrators and staff a year to get used to the idea.

The ban extends to the university's 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and continuing education students and 1,200 employees. Salem State is joining approximately 275 colleges and universities nationwide that have banned tobacco products on campus. Students and employees are also being offered tobacco cessation programs.

Cady said both prospective students and their parents like the tobacco ban.

"Our facilities people will enjoy it," Cady said. "They don't have to clean up cigarette butts."

Encouraging quitters

Other companies continue to let employees smoke, usually only in designated areas.

"We do have one dedicated area outside our building that is dedicated for smoking," said Analogic Corp.'s Mark Namaroff, director of strategic marketing and investor relations.

Smokers can gather under a shelter at the back of Analogic's Peabody headquarters, well away from the main entrance. Namaroff said it is hard to say when the high-tech company, which designs and makes medical imaging and security systems, would go smoke-free on its campus, where approximately 800 people work.

"If we could get all the employees to stop smoking, that would be ideal," Namaroff said, "instead of just taking away the areas where they smoke."

Analogic provides a smoking cessation program through its employee health benefits. The company also offers a number of wellness initiatives. The goal of offering smoking cessation and wellness programs is not to save on health care costs, but to keep employees happy, productive and healthy enough to show up for work.

"It's about work," Namaroff said, "how employees work and how motivated they are."

Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or by e-mail at eforman@salemnews.com or on Twitter @DanverSalemNews.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

Business

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

Local employers move to snuff out smoking, indoors and out

Site Map

Reader Access