People Ban: CT State Update

Connecticut lawmakers let casino smoking ban bill die
Supporters vow fight; tribes cheer

May 12, 2009
By WILLIAM SOKOLIC
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Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun claimed a victory Tuesday when the state Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee declined to act on a bill that would ban smoking in the casinos, thus killing the legislation.

Proponents, including dealers from both casinos and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, hoped the bill would pave the way for a total smoking ban on the gaming floor by 2011.

The decision to let the bill die was intentional, state Sen. Eileen Daily, D-Westbrook, said.

“There were a number of concerns voiced to me,” she said.

Compromise deals

The issue of sovereignty weighed on the committee’s mind, she said. So did the recent agreement between Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation to impose a limited ban at Foxwoods, similar to one reached with Mohegan Sun months ago.

“People were concerned about attacking the sovereignty of either Indian nation, so we’re grateful to both tribes and the governor for coming up with some alternative,” Daily said.

Withhold slot money

State Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven, the committee’s co-chairman, says there’s concern the tribes would fight the ban in court and withhold the $400 million they provide the state in slot machine revenue.

An expected decline in gaming revenue — and the state’s cut of that revenue — also played a factor.

“There’s ample data to back that up from other states,” Daily said.

Blumenthal expressed his disappointment. He called the bill a “prudent compromise, balancing the health needs of employees and patrons with concerns about competitive economic realities.
The bill is consistent with the compacts, the slot revenue agreement and tribal sovereignty.”

Union officials with the United Auto Workers, which represents dealers at Foxwoods, are angry about the inaction.

“The Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes have waged a public relations campaign designed to keep the status quo,” said Bob Madore, UAW Region 9A director. “Workers are the ones paying the price. And we will not stop defending the lives of casino employees until there is a full smoking ban.”

Daily said she would hope management at the two casinos would honor any requests to have dealers placed at a nonsmoking table if health is an issue. Mohegan Sun honors such requests and would continue to honor them, Tribal Vice Chairwoman Lynn Malerba said.

Tribes happy

The tribes praised the end of the bill.

“Through action today, the lawmakers have demonstrated a respect for the government-to-government relationship that has existed between the Mohegan Tribe and the state of Connecticut for generations. We commit to honor that relationship and to continue to work on issues of mutual concern,” Mohegan Tribal Chairman Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum said in a statement.

Mashantucket spokeswoman Lori Potter said, “The committee’s decision reflects a mutual concern for the health of our patrons and our employees, while respecting the tribe’s right to create and implement health and safety legislation. This is a win-win situation for us all.”

Malerba promised to monitor nicotine levels, and work to minimize the effect of secondhand smoke on dealers.

Blumenthal is not about to abandon the fight.

“I will seek support for other means to achieve legislative approval for the ban,” he said.

The proposal could still be brought up as an amendment before the legislative session ends June 3. Blumenthal also hopes to work with the tribes to broaden their agreements with the governor.

“I will continue battling to ban smoking at the casinos, protecting workers and customers from the deadly effects of secondhand smoke,” he said.

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House Snuffs Out Proposal To Ban Smoking At Casinos
By Ted Mann

5/7/2008

Hartford – The House of Representatives will not take up a proposal that could have extended the state smoking ban to the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, the chamber’s leader said Tuesday.
One day before the adjournment deadline of the 2008 regular session, the decision by the House Democrats effectively killed the bill, which had been aggressively sought by some labor groups but opposed by other u nions and by the owners of the two casinos, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes.
In a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic caucus, opinion had run nearly two-to-one against the bill, said House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, who had previously expressed skepticism about the proposal but agreed to consider a vote on it amid fierce lobbying from the United Auto Workers u nion.
The UAW has won the right to represent dealers at Foxwoods and helped push the bill through the Senate last week with the help of Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, and others.
The decision not to run the bill drew immediate condemnation from u nion officials, who said Amann had offered his“commitment” in the House as recently as last week.
” ‘Disappointed’ doesn’t really capture the feeling that we’re having today,” said Julie Kushner, assistant regional director for UAW Region 9, adding that Amann“gave us his commitment on this bill and then didn’t come through.”
”Now we know where he is, and we know who our friends are, and we know that he didn’t stand by these workers, and the consequences are very dire,” Kushner said.
Kushner said the u nion also held Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, partially responsible for the legislature’s decision, since Rell told Democrats she would likely veto the bill, possibly rendering a long fight to pass it moot.
The u nion, Kushner said, will“remember in November.”
Amann confirmed that he had committed to running the u nion’s bill, but said during an idle moment that that assurance had come“four weeks ago, when there was a surplus and before I found out my caucus doesn’t want to do the bill.”
”We’re in deficit now, the governor’s not going to sign it, and the caucus is saying no,” he said.
Other labor u nions have opposed the ban, including the Norwich-New London Building Trades Council, whose leaders have said a smoking ban could cause a drop-off in business, leading to a curtailment of the casinos’ current expansion plans.
The apparent demise of the smoking-ban proposal was music to the ears of both tribes, who had fought the proposal on the grounds that it exceeded lawmakers’ jurisdiction by attempting to legislate on the tribe’s reservation lands.
Chuck Bunnell, chief of staff for the Mohegan Tribe, called the news of the House decision“refreshing.”
”The tribal council has said all along that they were ready to sit down and discuss this important public health issue on a government-to-government basis,” Bunnell said.“Hopefully we can begin that process now that they have taken the threats off the table here.”
”We have mixed emotions,” said Bruce MacDonald, a spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.“On the one hand, we are pleased that the House leadership and members did the honorable thing with respect to this proposal, but we are saddened that we have lost three months when we could have been talking on a government-to-government basis.”
From the outset, the proposal to ban smoking in the casinos had plunged legislators – particularly those from southeastern Connecticut – into something of a quandary.
Vigorous lobbying from the UAW forced lawmakers to choose between the u nion’s contentions that a ban would radically increase workplace safety for the casinos’ dealers, waiters and other employees, and the wishes of the tribes, who have warned that the ban would trigger a bitter court battle and potentially deprive the state of millions in annual revenue from slot machines.
The issue also ran afoul of another source of tension in this session: the presumed ambitions of Amann and his counterpart in the upper chamber, Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn.
Williams is widely assumed to be considering a run for governor in 2010, and some opponents suggested in recent weeks that his support for the UAW’s position on the smoking ban came about in part to curry favor with the u nion, in hopes of winning an endorsement.
Williams himself dismissed such speculation in the course of several interviews in recent weeks, saying he and his party were attempting to balance valid concerns about the tribes’ limited sovereignty with worries about employees’ health.
Amann, meanwhile, has already announced his plans to retire and focus on a run for governor, and even before the decision to kill the bill had seemed to implicitly criticize his potential rival’s advocacy of the ban.
”Here’s what I did,” Amann said.“I focused on being speaker. I don’t need to worry about running for governor until May 8.
”That’s his call, though,” he continued.“He chose UAW. But doing that, he also had a risk of alienating the Building Trades (u nion) and the casinos. He’s now done that.”
Amann’s decision has done the same thing in the opposite direction, said Jack Edwards, a dealer at Foxwoods who was among a crew of yellow-shirted UAW members who lobbied for months for the bill.
Edwards said he was“very pleased with how much progress we made and how fast we made it inside this building,” but added,“I always grew up and was taught that a man’s word was his bond, and Speaker Amann did not live up to that standard.”
They weren’t planning to give up the lobbying effort, either.
”In the long run, we’re going to get our casino smoke-free,” he said.

Casino smoking ban passes Senate
5/3/2008
By Ted Mann
Hartford — It took almost five hours, and its fate is uncertain at best, but the proposal to extend a ban on cigarette smoking to Connecticut’s two tribal casinos passed the state Senate Friday night.
The Senate voted 24-11 to approve a modified version of the smoking ban proposal, which would form a negotiating committee to meet with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes, in an effort to reach a voluntary agreement bringing the state’s smoking ban to the tribe’s casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.
But while an amendment modified the provision most protested by the tribes, its essence remained: If the committee and tribal governments can reach no agreement by next spring, the existing ban will kick in for the casinos, a development that would almost certainly trigger a long and hard-fought court battle.
Three southeastern Connecticut senators, Democrats Andrew Maynard of Stonington, Andrea Stillman of Waterford, and Edith Prague of Columbia, voted for the bill. Sen. Eileen Daily, D-Westbrook, joined a group of Republicans voting against the bill.
Members of the United Auto Workers local u nion rejoiced when the bill was passed, shortly before 10 p.m. The u nion recently won the right to represent dealers at Foxwoods and had aggressively lobbied for the bill’s passage.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Mary Skog of Putnam, a table games dealer at Foxwoods, after the vote was completed. “I’m just so happy they had the courage to do it.”
Skog seemed tired, with good cause: Republican senators opposed to the bill had spoken for nearly two hours in support of a party amendment — one that was apparently intended as much to disrupt the schedule of the Democratic majority on a late-session night.
On several party-line votes, the Senate defeated measures that would have permitted casinos to allow smoking in up to one-fourth of their gambling space, with the addition of air purification systems, as well as several efforts to recommit the bill to various legislative committee.
But even some of those who supported the measure in the Senate were not so overjoyed, including Maynard and Stillman, whose senatorial districts cover the towns just south of the two tribal reservations, and who are among a large coalition of southeastern Connecticut lawmakers who urged leadership not to pass a smoking ban and instead to simply negotiate, as the tribes have asked.
The senators had been “trying mightily to not have it run,” Maynard said as he waited for debate to start.
Stillman said she remained sympathetic to the u nion’s concerns about workers’ health, but she also said she wanted to ensure her colleagues were aware of the risk a smoking ban could pose to the state’s share of the casinos’ slot machine revenue.
“My phone’s been ringing off the hook from mayors and first selectmen who are very upset, because they’re concerned about a loss of revenue,” Stillman said.
Estimates provided by representatives from Mohegan Sun suggested the casino could lose as much as $193 million in total revenue, including as much as $30 million from slot machines that would be contributed to the state. The potential loss at Foxwoods could be equally large, opponents said.
Both tribal governments had also lobbied aggressively to stifle the bill, which they viewed as a threat to business and an affront to the tribe’s limited sovereignty.
“The tribal nation is extremely disappointed in the vote,” said Arthur Henick, a spokesman for the Mashantuckets. “The tribe continues to believe that a government-to-government dialogue would have been a more constructive way to address this question.”
In a statement, Mohegan Tribal Chairman Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum asked the House to “reject the State Senate’s action so that government-to-government discussions on how best to protect the health of our patrons and employees can move forward.”
It didn’t appear that the bill would even get that far, as House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, told reporters he didn’t plan to call the bill for a vote. Amann cited the current budget impasse, in which Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she would veto any bill with an effect on future revenues or spending.
Opponents of the bill in the House also had suggested it might be directed to one or several legislative committees, including those on Public Safety and General Law, increasing the odds that time would run out on this legislative session before the House could vote.

References

Connecticut State Smoking Ban:
http://cga.ct.gov/2003/rpt/2003-R-0466.htm

CT General Statutes:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/pub/Chap557.htm#Sec31-40q.htm

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/pub/Chap557.htm#Sec31-40s.htm

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/pub/Chap368m.htm#Sec19a-342.htm

State Supreme Court Upholds Smoking Ban In Restaurants, Bars

February 05, 2007
JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN

NEW HAVEN — The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the state’s smoking ban in restaurants and bars by a 4-1 decision Monday.

The ruling by the state’s highest court upholds a 2003 law that banned smoking in bars and restaurants, but not in private clubs or the state’s two tribal casinos.

The law was challenged by a group of bar and restaurant owners who claimed the statewide ban on smoking in those establishments is unconstitutional and hurt their businesses. But efforts to repeal or revamp the law have fizzled.

The group claimed that the ban violated their equal protection rights because it excluded private clubs and casinos.

But the Supreme Court determined that the legislature had the right to make exemptions to the law.

“This decision to exempt private clubs from the smoking ban, while imposing the ban on new private clubs, is consistent with our conclusion that the legislature reasonably may have been endeavoring to protect the financial investment and settled expectations of members of private clubs,” Justice Christine Vertefeuille wrote for the majority.

As for casinos, the court cited limits on the state’s power to regulate smoking due to tribal sovereignty and other issues. Former Chief Justice William Sullivan dissented.

A call was placed to an attorney for the bar and restaurant owners seeking comment.

Smoking ban challenged

Feb. 8, 2006
Jodi Latina

Connecticut”s restaurants and bars have been “smoke free” for more than two years, but some are still questioning whether the law is unconstitutional. That fight is being played out at the State Supreme Court today.
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Opponents aren”t giving up their fight. Today, justices are hearing from the attorney general and a lawyer representing a number of bar and restaurant owners. Each has a half hour to make their claim.

Bar owners say the law is flawed because private clubs and casinos are exempt, leaving them to deal with angry customers who want to smoke. But the state argues that businesses are not widely affected. They argue the issue of “second hand smoke” is more important to the public at large and the number of those challenging the law is also dwindling.

“It”s not only good for health, but for businesses because more and more people want a safer environment where they”re not breathing other people”s smoke and they don”t want all the effects — cancer, respiratory disease — that smoking causes,” says Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

The justices will have some time to review the arguments and we could see a ruling early in the year.

There is also talk that some lawmakers at the state Capitol would actually like to tweak the law, adding a stiffer penalty to businesses that allow smoking illegally, possibly raising the penalty to more than the current $100 fine.
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Where there”s smoke, there”s ire

12-18-05
By Mary Ellen Godin, Record-Journal business editor

MERIDEN – It’s been 20 months since state legislation snuffed out the butts in caf?s and bars, but smoke is back in the air at some local haunts.

Police say they don’t have numbers on how many fines have been issued over the ban, nor do they track whether certain caf?s get more complaints than others.

Add to the mix the facts that few non-smokers who frequent their favorite watering hole complain about smoke and some bar owners are reluctant to turn people away, and you have a law that is tough to enforce.

The state smoking ban was first enacted for restaurants in October 2003 and then went to cover all clubs and bars in April 2004. One of its central aims was to protect employees from secondhand smoke.

According to the state statute, patrons who violate the ban are subject to a fine of up to $99. Club owners, on the other hand, face administrative consequences through the state Consumer Protection Agency that regulates their liquor permits, and by the state Department of Labor.

The state labor agency reports no complaints filed against bar owners for subjecting employees to secondhand smoke. But Consumer Protection reports that numerous fines have been dished out for smoking violations; however, they generally stem from investigations into other infractions at the caf? or bar, said a department spokeswoman.

Whereas some bars, such as Village Barn and Quality Time, have built outside decks to accommodate smokers, others take their chances they won’t get caught. A manager at Quality Time refused to be interviewed about the ban’s impact on business.

But an informal survey by the Record-Journal showed more caf?s ignoring smokers as opposed to those that enforce the ban. Smokers risk getting fines in Garryowen’s Pub, Jacoby’s Restaurant, AJ’s Oasis and Chas’ Place Caf?, and there are reports of others also allowing smoking.

At Garryowen’s, near Meetinghouse Village on Scott Street, empty Altoids containers double as ashtrays and are on the bar in daylight hours.

Employee Ed Jones said his bar and food business has been down about 15 percent since the smoking ban of April 2004.

“Nope, they’re not allowed to smoke,” Jones said. “If people smoke, it’s on them. They don’t pay me enough to enforce the law.”

Jones said the police have been around a few times, but he doesn’t know of any patron who has been fined.

At Jacoby’s, bar owner Paul Giacobbe sits at the bar and has a smoke before the business opens for the day.

“No, we don’t let them smoke here,” Giacobbe said.

He added that if it’s going on, he’s not aware of it, and the police have been around.

“These guys (bar owners) are in a tough position,” Giacobbe said. “This cost us a lot of money. Why can’t we have areas that allow smoking? Before the law, there was only smoking in the barroom.”

Fred Mauri, owner of Mauri’s Caf?, keeps a copy of the statute on hand in a thick notebook.

“All my customers are asked not to smoke and go outside,” Mauri said. “And if they don’t comply, I give them an ashtray and they take their chances. I can’t throw business out the door. I do the same thing every other bar owner does. There are places that don’t allow smoking, and if a customer doesn’t want to come to a place where there’s smoking, that’s the place he should patronize.”

At Chas’ Place Caf?, on a recent day, the Altoid containers are on the bar and a customer seated at the end has a pack of Marlboro reds nearby.

Owner Marie Erbe is not there, but when reached by telephone says that if there’s smoking going on, she’s not aware of it.

But at the Alibi on West Main Street, the ban is enforced and the owners have built a partially covered patio complete with a heater. Part-time bartender Rita Guiel said the smoking ban certainly makes a difference in business, especially in the winter.

“It’s cold out and people don’t want to go outside when it’s cold,” Guiel said.

She said customers often ask her if they can smoke indoors, but she has to stay firm, although she’s fully aware they could go somewhere else.

“You tell them that’s the law,” Guiel said. “A cop could walk in.”

Tom Meaghan, owner of Good Ol Tom’s Place, said it’s getting harder and harder to turn customers outside to smoke.

“It’s going to hurt anyone who enforces it,” he said. “I tell the inspectors, ‘You close down five bars and then you’re out of a job.'”

State Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Cheshire, who co-authored the anti-smoking bill, said he’s not surprised some places are violating the law.

“I have heard of a number of bars and restaurants around the state that have chosen to ignore or amend the law,” Murphy said. “But the vast majority of bars are observing this law and have managed very well with it.”

Murphy said if holdouts continue to light up, then it’s up to local police to enforce it.

Police Sgt. Lenny Caponigro said that, as with all laws, the Meriden police take the smoking ban seriously and will respond to all complaints.

Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, the author admits to participating in certain acts of civil disobedience – as in lighting up with the regulars – in at least two of the mentioned establishments. The author is trying to give up the habit.
mgodin@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2455

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