Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson likens them to "animals in a zoo."

They're those smokers cordoned off in fishbowl-like cigarette pens at the Salt Lake City International Airport.

And Anderson thinks the time has come to end it.

As part of his aggressive anti-smoking agenda, Anderson says he's ready to dump the smoking pens and, in doing so, completely ban all indoor smoking at Salt Lake's airport.

"I've always been opposed to smoking in the airport," Anderson said. The smokers "look like animals in the zoo. They're setting a really bad example for everybody."

Total bans are in effect in at least 88 airports nationwide, according to a December report by the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. Among those 88 are major ports like Los Angeles International, John F. Kennedy International in New York, Boise International, Orlando International, Portland International and many others.

"Airport managers are finding that ventilation is not an effective option in providing their employees and customers a healthier environment," Cynthia Hallett, executive director of the nonprofit Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said in a statement. "The most effective and least costly way to protect all employees, patrons and travelers from exposure to secondhand smoke is a completely smoke-free environment."

Already Anderson is lobbying for statewide legislation that would ban smoking in all Utah taverns and private clubs — the only current nonresidential indoor locales in Utah where people can smoke besides the airport. Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-West Jordan, plans to present such a ban at the Legislature this year.

Anderson said he would like to see the airport included in such legislation. But he doesn't want airport smoking to become a sticking point that would hold up laws banning smoking in private clubs.

"It's a little tough for us to be telling bar and club owners that they have to ban smoking and yet we're not willing to do it at our own airport," Anderson said.

Such a ban would not come without a fight. Anderson's own Department of Airports executive director Tim Campbell opposes the idea, and Delta Air Lines, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of all the flights out of Salt Lake City, apparently does as well. Delta spokesman Anthony L. Black had no comment on the issue, but Campbell said, "The airlines support having the smoking rooms available."

Indoor smoking is convenient for many airline passengers who smoke, especially those traveling through hub airports like Salt Lake City, Campbell said.