Top on the minds of someASHRAEengineers during their meeting Jan. 14-16, 2002 in Atlantic City, NJ, will be the casinos. Most will not be thinking about beating the mathematical odds. Their main concern will be how to best address the smoking environments within casinos and other hospitality venues.

ASHRAE has chosen to bring the debate over how ventilation in smoking areas should be addressed in its publications, standards and other design documents to a city that thrives on indoor hospitality. The issue of whether ASHRAE should adopt a separate ventilation standard for ventilating hospitality buildings or continue to address the issue through the Society's flagship IAQ standard, Standard 62, is best discussed by a broad and better informed audience, according to ASHRAE President William Coad.

"Bringing diverse and often opposing groups together is what the Society does best," Coad said. "The result of an open dialogue helps to define the issue and bring out the relevant points and the information that can be used in the development of standards and research." The dialogue also should help those engineers who design systems for these facilities.