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Complete Casino Smoking Ban Sought By Senators

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Feb 21, 2007 1:53 pm US/Eastern

Complete Casino Smoking Ban Sought By Senators

TRENTON (CBS/AP) ―

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Unhappy with a partial casino smoking ban recently approved by Atlantic City, state senators on Thursday moved to completely prohibit smoking in the city's 11 casinos by expanding a state law banning smoking in most public places.

Sen. Joseph Vitale said the Senate health committee that he chairs will hold a hearing Monday on imposing a total casino smoking ban.

"Its time to save the lives of the thousands of casino workers who are at risk because of second hand smoke," said Vitale, D-Middlesex.

The bill would amend a state law passed last year that banned smoking in bars, restaurants and most other public places but exempted casinos.

The city council in Atlantic City was poised to enact its own casino smoking ban, which would have made New Jersey the largest gambling destination in the nation to do so. But city officials backed away amid opposition from the casino industry, which claimed a ban would mean losing 20 percent in profits and as many as 3,400 jobs.

Instead, the city's law gives casinos until April 15 to set up temporary enclosures for smoking areas. They would have to be separated by floor-to ceiling walls and include powerful ventilation systems to suck smoke out of the building.

Karen Blumenfeld, policy and legal director for the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, has said her group studied a similar partial smoking ban in Rhode Island last summer and found widespread instances of people smoking in nonsmoking areas.

Vitale and other bill sponsors said the city law isn't enough.

"The facts are in on second hand smoke, and they don't bode well for casino workers," Vitale said. "We need to show them we value their lives as much as the lives of all the other people who now enjoy smoke-free workplaces."

Another bill sponsor, Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, said casino workers "deserve to breathe clear air without the health risks associated with second hand smoke."

"These workers should not have to face a choice between health and unemployment," Adler said.

Vitale scoffed at arguments a smoking ban would cost casino revenue and jobs.

"Surely, the powerful and creative minds who built the colossal monuments of the gambling industry in Atlantic City can conjure up ways to keep luring people to casinos without killing the help," Vitale said.