With their push to finish smoking in Atlantic Metropolis’s casinos going nowhere quick in both the courts or the state Legislature, on line casino staff and supporters of smoke-free playing halls demonstrated Thursday exterior a resort the place New Jersey’s governor was on account of communicate.
The employees have been pushing for 4 years to finish an exemption in New Jersey’s clear air regulation that enables smoking contained in the 9 casinos. They are saying they or their co-workers have gotten sick with most cancers, coronary heart illness and different situations associated to publicity to second-hand smoke.
Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has stated he’ll signal a invoice to finish on line casino smoking as soon as it reaches his desk. However he has invested little political capital in pushing for it to occur.
“I have an enormous amount of sympathy with them; they’re somehow blaming this on me,” Murphy stated on the present. “I simply need to repeat what I’ve been saying for about 5 years: If a invoice involves my desk that bans smoking in casinos in Atlantic Metropolis, I’ll signal it. Interval. I’m not equivocating, and I’ve not equivocated about that. The best way to resolve that is by way of laws.”
A invoice to finish on line casino smoking has been stalled within the state Legislature for years with out the state’s Democratic management permitting it to progress to full votes within the Senate and Meeting.
And a lawsuit introduced by the employees in April is working its means slowly by way of the authorized system; a choose refused to grant an order in August that might have ended smoking within the playing halls.
The stalemate added to the frustration of on line casino staff who say they need the identical office protections that nearly each different employee in New Jersey receives.
“It’s horrible when you have three, four, five people blowing smoke in your face,” stated Sandy Smolen, a seller on the Borgata on line casino for the previous 5 years and a 40-year veteran of the trade. “You can’t get away from it. You go home with a cough you didn’t have that morning.”
Elaine Rose, a frequent on line casino patron, voiced related sentiments.
“As a player, I’ve walked into a casino, played a couple hours, and walked out with a bad case of bronchitis,” she stated.
Whether or not to ban smoking is likely one of the most controversial points not solely in Atlantic Metropolis casinos, however in different states the place staff have expressed concern about secondhand smoke. They’re waging related campaigns in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Virginia.
The Atlantic Metropolis on line casino trade opposes a ban, fearing the lack of vital income and jobs if people who smoke cease coming to Atlantic Metropolis and take their enterprise elsewhere.
However opponents say casinos in a number of components of the nation have efficiently gone smoke-free with out dropping enterprise.
A competing invoice that might preserve the present 25% restrict of the on line casino flooring on which smoking can happen, however impose different limits can also be bottled up within the Legislature.
That measure would permit smoking in unenclosed areas of the on line casino flooring that include slot machines and are designated as smoking areas which are greater than 15 toes (4.6 meters) away from desk video games staffed by stay sellers. It additionally would permit the casinos to supply smoking in enclosed, individually ventilated smoking rooms with the proviso that no employee may be assigned to work in such a room in opposition to their will.
Ricky Foster, a supervisor-dealer on the Borgata for 21 years, stated the frustration amongst staff is palpable.
“We’re tired of doing Go Fund Me accounts for people’s cancer and heart conditions, and they never smoked a day in their life,” he stated.
