City of Brazoria bucks nonsmoking trend

GALVESTON - It's a staple of countless pulp fiction novels and TV police dramas. The suspect in the police interrogation room is close to being broken. The "good" cop slides a pack of cigarettes across the table. The suspect lights up, takes a deep drag, sits back in his chair and starts talking.

The trouble is that in the real world, smoking is not permitted in the interrogation room.

Except, now, in the small town of Brazoria.

Last month, the police chief of the city of 3,000 in west Brazoria County, where smoking is prohibited in public buildings, made his case to the city council that the interrogation room be exempted from the city's ordinance.

Council agreed unanimously and Brazoria, as best anyone can tell, is now the only city in Texas, and possibly in the entire country, where a detective can slide a pack of smokes across the table in hopes of softening up a suspect or putting a nervous witness at ease.

Police Chief Neal Longbotham told the council that the investigator for his seven-officer department argued that allowing suspects or witnesses to smoke put them at ease and made it easier to establish a rapport. "She felt that they are under pressure and under stress and sometimes they want to smoke a cigarette to relax themselves," Longbotham said.

Before the change, officers would interrupt questioning to take suspects or witnesses outside for a smoke. Refusing to allow smoking during an interview would only make interviewees more tense and uncomfortable, Longbotham said.

"When the council first got wind of it, they had doubts about it," Longbotham said. "They were thinking it was going to be a smoke room where everyone can go and smoke cigarettes."

But he won over the council with his argument that it could make interviewees more comfortable and therefore more willing to cooperate.

There are no similar exceptions to nonsmoking laws elsewhere in Texas that have come to the attention of Patricia Gray, director of research at the University of Houston Health Law and Policy Institute, which keeps a database of nonsmoking laws in the state that was updated last year.

"It is a unique exception," Gray said. "I don't find it particularly alarming, and I suspect it has more to do with establishing some rapport."

'Power of tobacco'

Unlike Brazoria, other Texas cities are moving toward tougher smoking restrictions. "Most of what we've been seeing is trending the other way," Gray said. "We have a dozen municipalities that have amended ordinances to incorporate e-cigarettes."

The data base doesn't keep track of counties because they do not have the power to pass nonsmoking ordinances, although many, including Harris County, have nonsmoking policies that don't have the force of law that a city nonsmoking ordinance does. The Harris County Sheriff's Office turns a blind eye to the county policy when it comes to interrogation rooms, sheriff's spokesman Alan Bernstein said. Bernstein quoted a supervisor as saying, "The psychological and physiological power of tobacco has proven to be extremely fruitful over the years. A cigarette is a small price to pay for a murder confession."

The Houston Police Department doesn't see it that way.

"We don't allow it," Police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said. Police investigators don't feel that the nonsmoking rule is making their investigations more difficult. "Our investigators don't feel that that's an issue," Silva said.

Nationally, it's hard to find another city with a nonsmoking exception for interrogation rooms. Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights keeps track of nonsmoking laws throughout the country and could only find one city with a similar law.

Merrill, Wis., passed an exception for its police interrogation room in 1997, said Cynthia Hallett, the organization's executive director.

The city abolished the rule so long ago that Merrill Police Capt. Corey Bennett said he couldn't recall the exact date. Losing the exception has not been a problem, Bennett said. "When someone needs a cigarette, we usually just go outside with them," he said. "It's not an issue at this point."

So far there have been no complaints about the smoking change from Brazoria residents, police officers or anyone else, Longbotham said. The local newspaper, The Facts, carried an editorial supporting the decision.

Second-hand smoke

But the idea of allowing smoking anywhere riles Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "There is a lot of evidence associated with the effects of second-hand smoke exposure," Hallett said. "Even if you are exposed to a little bit, you can be at risk."

There doesn't seem to be any push by other Texas police departments to follow Brazoria's example. The issue has never been discussed among members of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, said Shenandoah Assistant Police Chief Bryan Carlisle, speaking on behalf of Shenandoah Chief John Chancellor, association president.

"In talking with my chief, in his estimation that's never been an issue that's been brought before the Chiefs Association," Carlisle said.

Carlisle said he would be unwilling to expose his officers to smoke in an interrogation room.