Casinos, lawmakers are wary of ban on smoking
By Shane Graberand Kevin McDermott
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/31/2007
EAST ST. LOUIS — Non-smoker Wanda Clayton hits jackpots in a cigarette-lover's world.
Clayton, an accountant from Swansea, plays the Casino Queen's slots and tables four or five times a week. She's a member of the casino's executive club who gets a special parking spot close to the door. And, amid hanging clouds of smoke, she wins enough to remodel her home from time to time.
Still, she could do without the smoky-smell hair and musty clothes that seem to last hours after she leaves. So she's all for a no-smoking bill approved by the Illinois Senate on Thursday and on its way to the House.
The legislation would ban smoking in all indoor public areas — including bars, restaurants and casinos — and within 15 feet of public building entrances.
"It wouldn't bother me one bit," Clayton said outside the casino. "So many people aren't courteous when they smoke. They blow their smoke right in your face and put the ashtray under your nose."
But Clayton might be a riverboat casino oddity. Every table at the Queen seems to have an ashtray. They're planted between nearly every slot machine, mounted to the walls and stacked high on the card tables.
The casino has a non-smokers room, but Clayton said it has only penny and nickel slots there.
"And who wants to play those?" she said.
Georgia Griffin, for one. Griffin, of St. Louis, quit cigarettes three years ago after smoking for nearly 40. She stays out of the smoking area. But she's not sure she wants a smoke-free casino.
"I've got mixed emotions," she said. "They should make half of the casino designated for the smokers."
Smokers like her sister, Opal Jones. Jones said the smoke sometimes was too much, even for her. So she plays in the non-smoking room occasionally.
"But I think I'm against banning it because, even though I'm going to quit smoking, people still should have an area if they want it," said Jones, of Washington Park.
And Metro East legislators think they do. The Senate vote of 34-23 wasn't divided along partisan lines, but regional ones, with border-area lawmakers largely opposing it. No Metro East-area legislator of either party voted "yes." Several said afterward that they feared that a smoking ban on the two Metro East casinos would drive gamblers to Missouri's casinos.
Other businesses in border areas like the Metro East area and Rock Island fear that a statewide ban will cut into their profits, too, as people cross into smoking states just to light up.
The gaming industry says there is ample evidence for that fear, based on the experiences of casinos hit with recent smoking bans in Delaware and Ontario. They say the data suggest that if there is a nearby casino that allows smoking, as much as 20 percent of a nonsmoking casino's business will drift to it like, well, smoke.
"East St. Louis (casino operators) say as many as 60 percent of their clientele smoke," said Tom Swoik of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association. "At Rock Island, it's as high as 70 percent."
But some anti-smoking activists say that widely held assumption is a myth. Officials at the California-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights cite a University of Nevada study in 2006 that found that just 22.6 percent of Las Vegas gamblers were smokers, compared with a national smoking average of about 21 percent.
"Most gamblers are not smokers," said Bronson Frick, associate director for the California group. The organization says the gaming industry's claim that upwards of 70 percent of casino customers smoke is an exaggeration designed to scare politicians into exempting casinos from bans.
The organization reports that 22 states have some kind of statewide ban, either for smoking in restaurants or in all public places. No state adjacent to Illinois has a statewide ban.
"It's the same as the myth that most people in bars are smokers," said Frick. "It's just perception."
His organization has been trying to publicize that message nationally, on the argument that "casino workers have the right to breathe."
But at the Argosy Casino in Alton, smoking looked more like a membership requirement than a basic right. Slot players held smokes with one hand and worked machines with the other. Vending machines sold $6 packs of cigarettes.
In the one small, smoke-free room, fewer people played.
"I think they're going a little overboard with this stuff," Leo McNamara, of Springfield, Ill., said outside the Argosy. "There are a lot of things that are bad for you. But smoking is legal."
At least for now. Frick said the no-smoking trend is so clearly headed toward a near-nationwide public ban that any discrepancies between border areas of states will be short-lived. His group estimates that 56 percent of Americans are living in smoking-ban areas, with pending legislation in Illinois and a half-dozen other states likely to push that figure to 70 percent by next year.
"This isn't a new thing anymore," said Frick. "Now it's just a question of who's going to be last."
Swoik, of the gaming association, said his group was focusing its efforts now on getting a casino exemption attached to the Illinois legislation. The odds may be against him. Before last week's Senate vote, the bill's sponsor, trying to placate border-area lawmakers, prepared an amendment that would have created a three-year phase-in of the ban for casinos, but there was ultimately enough support to pass the bill without that concession.
The legislation is expected to be passed by the House and go to Gov. Rod Blagojevich this year. Blagojevich hasn't indicated whether he would sign it, and it might not be an easy decision. Blagojevich has made public health care a key issue of his second term, but he also has proposed massive new social spending that could be hampered by any significant drop in the state's casino gambling revenue. |
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