Rest assured, you can always enjoy a cigarette when you’re in a Saudi airport. Don’t worry about the signs that say this is prohibited. It’s as if they’ve been written with the word “not”. “Smoking is (not) prohibited!”
Seriously, you know those signs they have when you enter some cities or countries that say, “Smile! You are in Sharjah!” Why don’t we adopt this strategy in every Saudi airport: “Smoke! You’re at the Jeddah international airport!”
Oh, don’t worry about those laws that forbid smoking in airports throughout the Kingdom. It would be like posting speed limits on Madinah Road. They’re just signs. They don’t actually mean anything.
In Saudi airports, passengers smoke, airline employees smoke, security guards smoke. The only people who don’t smoke, it seems, are the lowly laborers that shuttle your bags around.
Everyone knows this is a violation of the law, yet nobody takes responsibility. One department blames another, and nothing ever happens.
Smoking in airports is a symbol of the insult to legal regulations. And these flagrant violations committed by careless Saudi citizens and airport workers are noticed by foreign visitors. What must they be thinking when they see Saudi citizens themselves ignoring their country’s laws?
