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Extra vacation days to non-smokers?

Posted at 11:21 PM, Nov 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-02 23:21:19-04

Tokyo based company Piala Inc. announced that they will be offering six extra days of vacation to non-smokers. The main reason Piala is doing this is to balance out the time smoking employees spend on cigarette breaks each week. 

Piala installing this program has made many think that this could be something adapted in the United States. For Western New York, that could helpful in combating smoking as both Erie and Niagara Counties are above the state average in smokers. 

If companies in the United States began to enact similar plans as Piala, Anthony Billoni, the Director of Tobacco Free Western New York, hopes this will have a similar effect to what happened when smoking was disallowed in buildings in 2003. 

"You don't hear much about the two pack three pack a day smokers anymore," Billoni said, "because without being able to smoke all day long at work it's physically impossible to have that many cigarettes."

According to Tobacco Free Western New York smokers cost New York State $8 million due to their higher tendency to be ill.