Gaming Industry Funds Police Crackdown on Outdoor Smoking While Fighting Effort to End Indoor Smoking in Casinos

Atlantic City, NJ — After receiving complaints about the smell of smoke, the Atlantic City Police Department is now cracking down on illegal smoking on the Atlantic City boardwalk. But luckily for cigarette smokers, they can always duck inside a casino if they want to light up. The Atlantic City mayor, police department, and casino industry seemed to instantly band together to combat smoking in a public, outdoor space — but they continue to ignore repeated calls from workers, patrons, and experts who have unanimously deemed that “smoking in casinos is a public health problem.”

A $3,000,000 grant from the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), an agency that directs reinvestment funds from New Jersey casinos to projects that benefit Atlantic City, will help pay for more police officers on the boardwalk to patrol for smokers. With this grant, casinos contributed funds to the police crackdown in the name of benefitting Atlantic City, all while ignoring the very same problem within its own industry.

Police Captain Kevin Fair said after “listening to and hearing the concerns of the residents and the visitors,” the department decided to step up its enforcement of the no-smoking law. But for years, casino patrons and workers have asked casinos to eliminate indoor smoking, citing numerous health and wellness issues, and yet, their pleas have been ignored.

“While Atlantic City and the CRDA spend millions to get the smoke off the boardwalk, workers inside the casino are left to suffer,” said Pete Naccarelli, co-founder of CEASE and a longtime table games dealer in Atlantic City. “If you light up a cigarette on the boardwalk, you’ll be told by an officer, ‘Sorry, you can’t smoke out here. You have to go inside and blow it in that dealer’s face instead.’ The seagulls have more rights and health protections than us. It’s time for the city and the state to recognize the common sense here: if visitors don’t want smoking outside in Atlantic City, they definitely don’t want it inside. If Mayor Marty Small really wants to show his constituents that he cares, and if the CRDA really wants to revitalize the tourism industry here, they will speak up for workers and tell the state legislature to pass an indoor smokefree casinos bill now.”

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Casino Employees Against Smoking (Harmful) Effects (CEASE) is a group of thousands of casino dealers and other frontline gaming workers that formed after indoor smoking returned on July 4, 2021 in Atlantic City, NJ and has expanded to states around the country. CEASE is fighting to permanently remove smoking from our workplaces.

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