"Convenience"?

I noticed this sign during a session at the Excalibur tonight. The capilization of "The Poker Room" is odd, but that's not what really caught my attention.

I get "comfort." Poker rooms are definitely more comfortable--for me, anyway--when they are non-smoking facilities. (Excalibur's poker room, however, just barely qualifies as "non-smoking; see http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-smoke-free-is-smoke-free.html.)

But I'm puzzled by the claim that the non-smoking status is somehow for my "convenience." I don't see how a poker room is made any more or less convenient by being smoking or non-smoking, except that it's obviously inconvenient to smokers to have to leave for a cigarette break.

Here's the American Heritage Dictionary entry for "convenience", from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/convenience:

1. The quality of being suitable to one's comfort, purposes, or needs: the
convenience of living near shops, schools, and libraries.
2. Personal
comfort or advantage: services that promote the customer's convenience.
3. Something that increases comfort or saves work: household
conveniences such as a washing machine, an electric can opener, and disposable
diapers.
4. A suitable or agreeable time: Fill out the form at your
earliest convenience.
5. Chiefly British A lavatory.

I suppose you could argue that being non-smoking makes the room more suitable to one's purposes or needs, though that's not obvious--and I'm confident that's not what first occurs to most readers when encountering the word "convenience." If it is taken as a rough synonym of "comfort," then the sign's wording is redundant.

I wonder who decided on the language for that sign, and why. But I kind of doubt I'll ever get an authoritative answer.

At least being confusing and/or redundant is better than being an outright lie, which is what I usually find with signs that businesses put up telling me that something is for my own "convenience." Usually it means that they are undergoing some sort of construction, and the mess makes my time in the establishment significantly less pleasant and/or efficient than usual, which just makes me resent the signs telling me that they are doing the work for my "convenience." Even if one assumes that they are referring to future convenience rather than current convenience, it's still a lie: the only reason that businesses take on such projects is so that they can make more money. What they perceive as my future convenience is merely what they hope is a means to that end. I hate companies that lie to me, especially in such obvious ways. I'd have much more respect for them if their signs said, "We are remodeling in the hope that you will spend more money here when we're finished." Honest and direct--that I could admire.