Casino news source: Press of Atlantic City - http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com
Smokers fume over possibility of casino smoking ban
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, 609-272-7258
Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008
Al Heagy, of Dover, Pa., has a smoke as he plays the slots Wednesday at Harrah's Atlantic City.
ATLANTIC CITY - A cloud of smoke swirled around Patricia Miller's head as she used one hand to hold her cigarette and the other to push the spin button on a penny slot machine at Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.
Ever since casinos transformed the resort town into a gambling haven 30 years ago, smokers such as Miller have blithely puffed away while playing the slots and gaming tables.
Now, there is a possibility that casino patrons may be relegated to smoking lounges where there is no gambling. City Council was poised Wednesday to vote on a complete smoking ban on the casino floor, but the measure was pulled from the agenda for further debate in two weeks.
The thought of not being able to light up on the casino floor has enraged the smoking crowd. Smokers said they would refuse to be packed into airport-style smoking lounges.
"Smoking and gambling go together. You can't have one without the other," declared Miller, 71, a Clifton, Passaic County, resident who has smoked for 50 years. "It's ludicrous that they would ban smoking in the casinos."
Another smoker, Elizabeth Stewart, of Brooklyn, N.Y., threatened to take her business to slot parlors in Pennsylvania and New York if she is not allowed to smoke in Atlantic City.
"I won't come here if they stop smoking," Stewart said, while playing a 25-cent slot machine at Resorts Atlantic City. "I will go to Yonkers or to Philadelphia Park if they don't want me here."
Atlantic City's gaming revenue declined 5.7 percent last year, an unprecedented drop blamed on extra competition from surrounding states and the impact of the city's current partial casino smoking ban. One smoker, Ed Werner, of Pleasantville, predicted that a complete ban would be devastating to Atlantic City by forcing even more smokers to flee the resort.
"I believe it will kill the casinos, actually," Werner said during a break from the slot machines at Trump Taj Mahal. "People will go to the Pennsylvania racetracks or the casinos in Delaware."
Citing the dangers of secondhand smoke, City Council is prodding the casinos to build smoking lounges equipped with separate ventilation systems to prevent smoke from drifting throughout the building. Under a law that began last April, casinos are allowed to have smoking on 25 percent of the gaming floor. But some council members want to tighten the law to abolish smoking on the casino floor, allowing it only in designated lounges.
Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Tropicana Casino and Resort and the four Harrah's Entertainment Inc. properties - Harrah's, Bally's, Caesars and Showboat Casino Hotel - have already proposed building smoking lounges that would contain no gambling.
However, Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Marina Hotel Casino are planning to build smoking rooms on their casino floors. Resorts and its sister property, the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, plan to have nongambling smoking lounges as well as smoking rooms on the casino floor.
Smokers complained they would feel like outcasts or second-class citizens if they were forced off the casino floor.
"I would refuse to go into the smoking lounges," said MaryPat Wilson, a smoker who lives in Brigantine. "Smoking is very detrimental to our health, but now it's gotten to the point where the government is telling us which games we can play. It's not going to do any good for the casinos. If I'm not allowed to smoke and gamble here, I will probably go somewhere else where I can."
Kathryn Newberry, a nonsmoker from Philadelphia, maintained that a total smoking ban would be too harsh. She favors separating smokers from nonsmokers by having walled-in smoking rooms on the casino floor.
"As long as the smokers are kept in rooms away from the regular gamblers, that would be all right," Newberry said. "I'm willing to compromise. I don't think smokers should be completely banned from the casinos."
But Catherine Keith, of Pasadena, Md., argued that the best way to keep casino patrons and employees healthy is to prohibit smoking altogether.
"An awful lot of us would feel much better, especially the senior citizens," said Keith, who smoked for 30 years but stopped to improve her health. "I think it's rude when people smoke near me. If someone smokes next to me, I get up and leave. I want to be as polite to them as they should be to me." |
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