Atlantic City Casino Smoking Cessation Legislation Gains Committee Support

Atlantic City casino smoking is allowed on upwards to 25% of the gaming floors but that could presently change after lawmaking seeking to shut the indoor tobacco apply loophole moved come out of its world-class commission Monday in Trenton.

Senate Bill 1493 seeks to amend New Jersey’s 2006 Smoke-Free Air Act to closemouthed the baccy freedom afforded to casinos in Atlantic Ocean City. The legislating was passed via political party lines Monday inward the Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee.

S1493 comes from body politic Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex) who has been trying to relieve oneself the nine casinos land the shore turn smoke-free since 2017. The legislating is his reintroduced casino smoking bill that was numbered Senate Bill 264 lowest year.

Monday’s 5-3 voter turnout saw Vitale and his committee Democratic colleagues balloting in favour of moving the anti-casino smoking statute forward. Vitale was joined by Sens. Ilion Singleton (D-Moorestown), Renee Burgess (D-Irvington), Angela McKnight (D-Jersey City), and Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City).

Three committee Republicans, Sens. Sir Richard Owen William Henry (R-Old Bridge), Holly Schepisi (R- R-Westwood), and Henry M. Robert Isaac M. Singer (R-Lakewood), voted inwards the minority.

Casino Smoking Milestone

Efforts to terminal cassino smoking inwards Atlantic Ocean City get lingered inwards the Trenton working capital for many years. It’s been over 18 years since to the highest degree workers in New Jersey gained the legal correct to act inwards an surround free people of toxic used smoke.

Members of Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) say they cannot wait any longer. The grassroots coalition that started in New Jersey has rallied sustenance for smoke-free casinos in Atlantic Ocean City. The radical has since expanded with chapters inwards Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Kansas, and Old Dominion State where cassino smoking also persists.

CEASE hailed Monday’s citizens committee vote.

We give thanks the committee for voting to pass on legislation that will at once improve our workplace conditions and full protect thousands of frontline cassino workers from the dangers of used smoke,” a financial statement provided to Casino.org read.

“Today is a outstanding daylight inward our scrap for a healthier workplace and we won’t stopover fighting for this legislation until we canful finally take a breath smoke-free broadcast at work. We exhort lawmakers to make pass this note when it comes to the Senate floor because no more ane should follow forced to opt betwixt their wellness and a paycheck,” the resign continued.

S1493 has been directed to the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee where it’s place for further consideration.

Jobs vs. Health

The crux of the matter of the legislative debate around Atlantic City cassino smoking boils knock down to determining if a baccy ban would termination inward the 9 casinos winning less money on their gaming floors. Two studies on the come forth reached different conclusions.

The Casino Association of New Jersey commissioned Spectrum Gaming, single of the most respected search firms inward the US gaming industry, to break down the impact of a smoking ban.

Spectrum said in its 2022 cover that a total smoking banning would result in a nearly 11% decline in brick-and-mortar gross gaming revenue in the first year after implementation. The gambling casino win drop-off would pencil lead to as often as $44 1000000 in rock-bottom gaming taxes and could pencil lead to as many as 2,500 chore losses, Spectrum said.

In a contrasting study, C3 Gaming, formed only inwards 2021, wrote in a 2022 explore legal brief titled, “Evaluation of Post-Pandemic Non-Smoking Trends inwards US Casinos,” that the allowance of indoor smoking is no yearner critical to gaming revenue health.

C3 researchers countered claims made past Atlantic Ocean City cassino execs that suggested gamblers who like to fume would use up their business organisation to nearby City of Brotherly Love where several casinos keep to allow indoor fag and cigar smoking.

Should the New Jersey Legislature faithful the smoking loophole and prohibit smoking inward Atlantic Ocean City casinos, gamblers from New York, New Jersey, and Eastern PA testament have only when four options if they need to adventure inwards a smoking environs and none of them offers the same gaming/entertainment see as Atlantic Ocean City,” the C3 study declared.

The C3 end references indoor smoking remaining at Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia, Harrah’s Philadelphia, Rivers Casino Philadelphia, and Valley Forge Casino Resort.

Wind Creek Bethlehem, near an time of day due north of Philly, also allows indoor smoking. Parx Casino Philadelphia, however, which is the richest cassino inward the state, does not.

Some lawmakers inward New island of Jersey — mainly Republicans — guess on that point mightiness live possible solutions to improve protect worker health than imposing a fill out ban. New island of Jersey Sen. Vince Polistina (R-Atlantic), one time a major admirer of a cassino smoking ban who flipped his view after auditory sense from the casinos, is reportedly considering introducing a concession measure that would uphold to set aside some make of indoor smoking.

Ideas floated include fully enclosed smoking rooms where one-armed bandit machines and a few tabularize games would operate. The casinos feature assured lawmakers that only when voluntary employees would do work in such environments.

CEASE members aren’t buying it.

“Sen. Polistina should non innovate his so-called ‘compromise’ billhook that will only compromise the health of Atlantic City workers,” CEASE wrote. “Only a pair of weeks ago, he told workers that [S1493] did non have got the votes to receive come out of this committee, but hither we are celebrating this milestone. The railroad train is leaving the place and it’s clip for him to catch on table or get under one's skin out of the way.”

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