Denver's new airport opened in 1996 and still has smoking lounges. Despite a vow from Walker Merryman of the Tobacco Institute that the tobacco industry would refuse to pay for smoking lounges in the airport, the lounges were quietly subsidized by Philip Morris through a restaurant chain called "Pour Le France", so that it appeared that Pour Le France established the smoking lounges. Philip Morris worked to keep its name invisible in this effort. For details of the Denver International Airport smoking lounge caper, see our recent report on Tobacco Industry Involvement in Colorado (available for free at www.alacolo.org)
In a May 1991 letter, Federico Peņa (the mayor of Denver, Colorado) writes to Louis Sullivan, the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, about his efforts to reduce or eliminate people's exposure to secondhand smoke from tobacco products. Mayor Peņa talks about the difficulties he encountered from the tobacco industry in trying to make the city's new airport (then in the planning stages) 100% smoke-free.
Revealing a major tobacco industry tactic, Mayor Peņa says "The tobacco industry targeted the airport restrictions with a massive lobbying effort which included an 800 number the industry set up so that people from throughout the country could call members of [Denver's] city council at no expense. City Council bowed to the pressure and passed an ordinance repealing the restrictions at the airport."
Mayor Peņa discussed how restricting smoking in the existing airport made a "significant difference in the indoor air quality compared to other airports throughout the country." He urges the Secretary to support efforts throughout the country to restrict smoking in airports saying, "It's clearly a matter of health."