My work recently got a new manager. We work retail and we share a break room. This new manager we have is a smoker. None of us in the store smoke except for him so this is the first time we have had to deal with this.
Every break he takes he uses it to smoke. He goes to his car to smoke between 15-30 minutes three times a day. Every time he comes back in he smells very strongly of cigarettes and then takes his jacket off and leaves it in the break room. After each of his breaks we can all smell cigarettes on him very strongly for about an hour. The break room, unfortunately, will smell very strongly of cigarettes the entire day. Multiple employees have complained to each other about it. Some of us have tried bringing spray but then it just smells like febreze and cigarettes. A customer has even mentioned I smelled like cigarettes after coming back from my break.
A few of us have casually mentioned there was a strong smell in the break room but he just said “I can do what I want on my breaks”. He sounded very defensive so we all let it go because we don’t want to start workplace drama as we are all very laid back. What’s the best/nice way to basically tell him “you smell and make everyone around you smell”?
Can we complain about this or is it something we have to suck up and deal with?
Edit spelling