Vol. 4, No. 3, March 2007
RSS Feeds
Clearing the Air
Casinos prepare for smoking ban compromise
The City Council of Atlantic City last month approved a smoking ban in the casinos that will ban all smoking on 75 percent of the casino floor. The remaining floor space, where smoking will be permitted, must be closed off with glass partitions that allow powerful ventilation systems to remove the smoke.
It was a compromise no one liked, but everyone could live with (except perhaps some of the more fanatic anti-smoking groups and individuals).
For the casinos, it allows them to continue to offer smoking for their customers who enjoy the activity. It will cost them millions of dollars to install the partitions and the ventilation, but it will prevent poaching of its customers by surrounding gaming jurisdictions where smoking is permitted. Losing those customers would have cost up to 3,000 jobs, millions in gaming revenues and a corresponding amount of gaming tax receipts, the industry said.
Casino Association of New Jersey President Joe Corbo says that each casino will now decide how to implement the new ordinance.
“Each of our member properties will now consider in earnest how each can best comply with the ordinance in a manner that allows our casinos to offer gaming opportunities to our many customers who smoke that also addresses the concerns of our valued employees,” he said.
City Council was caught between a rock and a hard place. While it wanted to provide a safe working environment for city workers, it also wanted to preserve the prosperity and future growth possibilities for the city’s major industry.
“From October to today we listened to both sides of what everyone had to say,” said City Council President William “Speedy” Marsh. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t the best outcome in the world but we did something good.”
In a 6-3 vote, council members decided to protect jobs and the health of employees who didn’t want to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Councilman Marty Small summed up the members’ thoughts when he said, “Seventy-five percent is better than zero.”
While dozens of people testified during the second reading of the ordinance, few were Atlantic City residents and others were high school students, not old enough to vote. Thirty-one of the 33 people who spoke during the February 7 meeting called for an outright smoking ban and even threatened legal action if the compromise was approved. However, Josh Brown, a four-year casino employee, commended Marsh and council on the compromise saying, “In the end it’s going to work out.”
In February, Atlantic City Mayor Bob Levy signed off on the ordinance. The casinos have a deadline of April 15 to implement the ban, and must provide the Depatment of Community Affairs plans for the ventilation systems in each property by September 15.
The casino industry also will be looking for a signal from the state legislature that it will accept the council-approved compromise. When New Jersey originally imposed a smoking ban in all public places last April, the casinos were exempted. Legislators have been under pressure from constituents to reverse that exception, but have so far resisted. It’s unclear whether this will satisfy the legislators.
Assemblyman Jim Whelan, who introduced a bill to totally eliminate the casino smoking exemption, says he doesn’t see any desire in the legislature to get in the way of the compromise. “I think we are at a point where we should give the compromise a chance, see how it works out and go from there,” he said.
