“Casino workers Have Been Inhaling the Second-Hand
Evidence of Their Employer’s Indifference”

Atlantic City, NJ—In a new column, New Jersey Star-Ledger writer and cartoonist Drew Sheneman debunks the claim that eliminating indoor smoking will hurt Atlantic City casinos. Nearly two decades after passage of the Smoke-Free Air Act, Sheneman points out, the hospitality industry is thriving and most workers enjoy smokefree environments—but casino employees are still exposed to dangerous secondhand smoke as legislative efforts to close the smoking loophole continue to face pushback.

KEY POINT: There is no rational explanation as to why restaurant and bar workers are entitled to safe workplaces and casino workers are not, besides the fact that the powerful corporations that run Atlantic City gaming have spent a lot of money in Trenton to make it so. It’s time for the Legislature to ignore the scare tactics and just pass the ban already.

The article is excerpted below.

The Star-Ledger: Pass the casino smoking ban, the gamblers aren’t going anywhere | Sheneman – nj.com

By Drew Sheneman

September 15, 2024

Back in 2006, New Jersey passed the Smoke-Free Air Act that banned smoking indoors in public places like bars and restaurants, because despite decades of advertising to the contrary, smoking leads to the ICU, not flavor country.

Prior to the decision, those same bars and restaurants raised hell over concerns that their businesses would be decimated by the throngs of smokers taking their nicotine and discretionary income and going home. Their predictions turned out to be prophetic, and the restaurant and hospitality industry was decimated by the loss of revenue. Across the state, mom and pop diners and local watering holes were boarded up and abandoned, their dilapidated husks turned into neighborhood tobacco dens where smokers huddle around barrel fires talking about the good old days when you could hotbox an entire dining establishment at will.

Besides the indoor smoking ban, none of that happened, because the idea that an entire industry will collapse if people are forced to smoke outside is ridiculous.

That hasn’t stopped the gaming industry from trying and succeeding at making the argument. Casinos successfully petitioned for a carveout of the 2006 ban, and the 2024 effort is intended to correct the mistake. That means in the 18 years since — while servers, busboys and bartenders have been enjoying the pink lungs and reduced chance of heart disease that come from working in a smoke free environment — casino workers have been inhaling the second-hand evidence of their employer’s indifference.

Casino workers are now asking the state Supreme Court to take up their case, after a federal judge ruled that the Constitution only guarantees a right to pursue safety in the workplace, not actual safety itself.

There is no rational explanation as to why restaurant and bar workers are entitled to safe workplaces and casino workers are not, besides the fact that the powerful corporations that run Atlantic City gaming have spent a lot of money in Trenton to make it so. It’s time for the Legislature to ignore the scare tactics and just pass the ban already.

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ABOUT AMERICANS FOR NONSMOKERS’ RIGHTS

ANR Foundation’s sister organization, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) is a member-supported, non-profit advocacy group that has been working for over 45 years, since 1976, to protect everyone’s right to breathe nontoxic air in workplaces and public places, from offices and airplanes to restaurants, bars, and casinos. ANR has continuously shined a light on the tobacco industry’s interference with sound and life-saving public health measures and successfully protected 61% of the population with local or statewide smokefree workplace, restaurant, and bar laws. ANR aims to close gaps in smokefree protections for workers in all workplaces, including bars, music venues, casinos, and hotels. For more information, please visit https://nonsmokersrights.org and https://smokefreecasinos.org