No Smoking at AC Slot Machines?

Atlantic City’s City Council is seriously considering banning smoking at the town’s eleven slot machine and gambling casinos – something that horrifies the casino industry. If the city passes the ban on the slot machine and gambling casinos saying that there is to be no smoking, it could pass on Friday with the Mayor signing it into law 20 days later. Slot machine and gambling casinos without smoking? Unheard of!

The problem is that if they ban smoking in all slot machine and gambling casinos, those that want to smoke may very well take their business elsewhere. There are many more smoker friendly slot machine and gambling casinos over in Connecticut – mainly Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun – or over to Pennsylvania where they allow smoking as well. "Given the economic effects that the imposition of a smoking ban would cause," revenues would dive at least 20%, resulting in "approximately 3,400 employees being laid off," said Joseph Corbo of the Casino Association of New Jersey.

When the state said that indoor public places were to be smoke free, they gave an exemption to the slot machine and gambling casinos. However, Councilman Bruce Ward found a way around it in that "The New Jersey Clean Air Act allows a municipality to create an ordinance that gives equal or greater protection [to its people]" and “secondhand smoke inhalation is serious." Therefore, if you are working in or going to the slot machine and gambling casinos you deserve the right to be smoke free.

The slot machine and gambling casinos say they would like to see the bill defeated outright, but if it isn’t they will probably end up suing as they feel the state, not the city, has jurisdiction over the casinos and their slot machines.

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