Hotel owner branded a ‘fool’ for refusing to hire ‘smelly’ smokers

A HOTEL owner has been branded a "fool" for admitting she doesn't want "smelly" smokers working at her guest house.

Angela Wimbe says she does not have a single smoker on her staff at Heather Glen Guest House in Moray, Scotland and never has - because she doesn't feel "comfortable" with them.

The businesswoman claims she can always tell if someone has a nicotine habit as soon as they meet as she can "smell it on their clothes".

She said: "I hate smoking. I can tell when I meet somebody if they're a smoker.

"As soon as somebody walks in you can usually smell [it] on their clothes.

"I hate when people come into my premises stinking of smoke."

Angela was wading into a row about whether non-smokers should be given extra time off to make up for colleagues' cigarette breaks at the time.

Posting on Facebook on Tuesday, she added: "I don't really associate with any smokers and I've no close friends that [...] are smokers because I just don't feel comfortable with people that smoke.

"I don't have any smokers working at the guest house and never have.

"As an employer, if I had two equally matched candidates for a job but one was a smoker and the other not, I would give the job to the non-smoker."

According to UK law, it is only illegal to discriminate against someone based on certain 'protected characteristics'.

These include age, sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability, race, religion, and sexual orientation - and not lifestyle choices such as smoking or drinking.

However Angela, who has owned Heather Glen Guest House for 15 years, has faced a discrimination backlash since her smoking rant on social media.

Susan Davies said: "That's called discrimination, your a silly fool."

And Nicola Evans wrote: "Surely it's then down to personality and whether you gel with the person?"

Hitting back at critics, ex-lecturer Angela said: "Everything is discrimination. You've got to decide on something.

"If you look at somebody and you don't like their hair style, that's discrimination.

"If you don't like their voice when they talk and think 'I couldn't stand listening to that person's voice every day', that's discrimination.

"I'm just saying it. Everyone shies away from it.

"I don't discriminate against race or colour or anything like that. That doesn't bother me at all.

"But if someone came in dirty, smelling of smoke or [with] dirty fingernails, you think 'I don't want this person coming into my business' because it's not a good look."

Acas, an independent body that provides advice employment rights, claimed smoking "should not have any bearing on whether or not to employ them".

Acas senior advisor, John Palmer, added: “Employers should think about the impracticalities and risks of refusing to employ smokers.

"As well as being a potential infringement on a workers human rights and their right to private life, if a non-smoker has been working somewhere for years and then becomes a smoker, it would likely be unfair to dismiss them on those grounds.

"It’s also unlikely to make good business sense – whether or not a worker chooses to smoke is usually going to have little to do with their qualifications, experience and abilities."