Atlantic City May Delay Casino Smoking Ban

Oct. 7, 2008 — -- ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — With the economy crumbling and revenues plunging, the city may put off the Oct. 15 start of a blanket ban on smoking in casinos to avoid further losses.

The ban, opposed by casino owners but supported by workers, was approved in April before Wall Street melted down. The City Council is scheduled Wednesday to consider a delay.

"Smoking is not healthy. Smoking kills people," said Bob McDevitt, president of the city's largest casino workers union,Unite-Here Local 54. "So does job loss, unemployment and thethreat of foreclosure. People will lose their ability to feed their families."

But Jennifer Guillermain, an 18-year supervisor at Caesars Atlantic City, said many workers in the city's 11 casinos feel betrayed by the possibility of postponement. They will turn out in force at Wednesday night's meeting to try to persuade the council to keep the ban in place, she said.

"These greedy casino owners sit up in their smoke-free offices, and we're the ones dying for their bonuses," Guillermain said. "Enough is enough."

The new law allows casinos to set up enclosed, ventilated smoking lounges that would be unstaffed. But smoking would be banned on gambling floors. For the past year and a half, the casinos have operated under a partial ban that restricted smoking to no more than 25 percent of a casino floor.

Nearby, slots parlors in Pennsylvania have a partial smoking ban and Indian-run casinos in Connecticut have no restrictions on smoking.

City Councilman Marty Small acknowledged that many casino workers, particularly dealers and cocktail servers, are anxiously awaiting the start of the smoking ban.

"But one of the things no one could have predicted when we passed this was the crisis in the economy in this country," he said. "We have to balance the health of the casino workers with the health of the casinos themselves."

Casinos, he said, pay 80 percent of the taxes in Atlantic City. If one or two casinos close, "that comes back on us as taxpayers who have to make up for those taxes."

McDevitt's mother was a smoker and died of cancer. Guillermain, who has worked in the casino industry for 24 years, said she is waiting for a CAT scan of her lungs to determine if nodules detected there might be cancerous.

"I'm one of who-knows-how-many people here who don't know what's cooking inside them," she said.

Joe Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, declined comment on possible delay of the ban. Larry Mullin, president of the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, said most — if not all — casinos in the city favor delaying it.

"If the market weren't facing these economic conditions, we wouldn't be asking for this," he said. "But we'd like to delay it for as long as these conditions exist."

Donald Trump was a little more pointed last week during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the second hotel tower at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino resort.

"The smoking ban will take tens of millions of dollars of taxes away, will take tens of millions of dollars of aid away to senior citizens," he said. "It's going to be a disaster."