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N.J. smoking ban, 1 year later: Some still fume while others breathe deep
4/16/07
By BOB CONSIDINE, Staff Writer

The air is clean and clear at Pourman’s Pub in Manville, but bartender Bill Legge doesn’t necessarily like what he sees.

It’s the sight of smokers leaving their stools to puff their cigarettes outside. As far as Legge is concerned, it’s not good for business.

“You can’t bring the alcohol outside unless you have a permit or an enclosed designated area,” Legge said. “So you figure where a person normally had three or four drinks in an hour, now they’re having two. So you do the math. It’s not good.

“To put it to you frankly, smokers pay the bills. This is just another thing breaking our backs. It’s hard enough trying to survive in this business,” Legge said.

Over at the Strike & Spare Lanes in Green Brook, there’s a foursome huddled outside during a chilly late afternoon for an in-between frame drag.

“Thank you for curing all the nonsmokers, but I’m actually getting pneumonia standing outside,” said Eugene Vilinsky, 29.

His buddy, Jed Apgar, turned 28 Sunday. And Apgar no longer equates his birthday with the day taxes are due.

“Now my birthday is the day they started the smoking ban,” Apgar said. “It’s bad, because when you’re drinking, you want to have that cigarette.”

One year after New Jersey’s Smoke-Free Air Act began, owners and patrons of certain bars, restaurants, all-night diners and establishments say they have been negatively affected.

But nonsmokers, anti-smoking activists and health officials who fought for the controversial law are hailing it as an overwhelming success. At a news conference Tuesday, state Health and Senior Services Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs reported 90 percent compliance of the law in restaurants and 75 percent conformity in bars since the law began.

He also referred to a New Jersey Medical Society survey that said 89 percent of the 1,300 people polled believe the smoking ban has made bars and restaurants safer for employees and customers.

In addition, the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution found that fine particle indoor air pollution was reduced 91 percent over the first six months of the law in a survey of 50 restaurants around the state. The group also found no patron decrease in informal talks with proprietors.

“There is overwhelming proof that this has been successful,” said Regina Carlson, the group’s executive director.

Still, there are certain factions that say this is not the time to butt out — even with a year of cigarette prohibition inside New Jersey’s 23,000-plus restaurants and bars.

Tough puff stuff

Anthony Bendetti absolutely despises smoking. But as owner of McCarthy’s Bar and Grill in Bridgewater, he has seen the New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act choke some of his business. And all he wants is the chance for a level playing field.

“What people have to understand is our industry is separated into different categories,” Bendetti said. “And these categories often aren’t related to each other. What my place has to do with places like Il Pomodoro or Wasabi is zero. Those are mainly food-driven operations.

“Places like ours, we rely on what we can take in at the bar,” Bendetti said. “Now I think it’s terrible when people are subjected to other people’s smoke. But at the same token, there probably could have been a better way to allow for temporary indoor smoking areas where clientele could go — even if it was separated from every aspect, from ventilation to construction.”

This was just one of Bendetti’s ideas, and he said personnel wouldn’t have to work in such a room, only needing to clean up after closing.

Others have had ideas, such as incorporating a smoking license at an establishment and leaving it up to the customer whether or not to visit.

“This ban has absolutely hurt business around the state in the short term, which was expected,” said State Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, D-Union, a former owner of Cryan’s Restaurant in Metuchen, Branchburg and South Orange. “No doubt that is has hurt the little guy.”

Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, said the first year of the smoking ban has brought mixed results, with some restaurants and bars pleasantly surprised by boost in food sales.

“But it was the mom-and-pop type establishments, the ones that were already coping with the chains, that have seen some struggles,” Dowdell said. “You add a smoking ban to places that carved out a niche to accommodate a smoking clientele, and it becomes a tough hurdle to overcome.”

Certain restaurateurs have sought alternatives, designing or decorating an outdoor setting for smokers to bring their drinks outside.

Unfortunately, Dowdell said, current laws of what you can build outside and where you can drink outside are enforced differently in different municipalities. She said restaurants are still waiting for a promulgation of regulations from the state, but they haven’t come yet.

“We’re a year later and the rules still haven’t been finalized,” Dowdell said. “Our association supports restaurants that comply with the law. Just tell us, and we’ll comply.”

Of course, some places won’t have the budget for outdoor expansion, if permitted. Bendetti, who says his bar intake is down 15 percent since the ban began, will be satisfied having an outdoor area for patrons to bring their smokes and drinks.

“But for those places that can serve outside, they have a very unfair advantage,” he said. “We can’t compete with that.”

All about health

As far as the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution is concerned, the risks of secondhand smoke among restaurant patrons and employees are more important the rewards from a restaurant’s bottom line.

According to the American Lung Association, secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and estimates from 22,700 to 69,600 heart disease deaths in U.S. nonsmokers each year.

“Smoking is the No. 1 cause of death in America,” Carlson said. “Our organization has tested the air before and after the law and have found great improvement in the results. And in just informally talking with restaurant owners and managers, without any leading questions, we didn’t get a single negative about the new law.”

The smoking ban also has had a positive increase on those trying to quit smoking, especially people in their 20s and 30s, said Dr. Chris Kotsen, program manager for the TobaccoQuit Center at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville.

“This is related to the changing of social norms,” Kotsen said. “It used to be people would go on automatic pilot, have a cigarette with a drink. Now, that’s being broken up. People have to think about going outside first. So it helps quitting with awareness and motivation.”

Ironically, anti-smoking activists and angry proprietors have one common enemy — Atlantic City casinos.

Both feel it was hypocritical for lawmakers to exempt casinos from the ban, apparently, to preserve state revenue. Starting Sunday, cigarette smoking is confined to 25 percent of a casino’s floor space. But both sides say that isn’t enough.

“Casino patrons and workers need to be protected,” Carlson said. “But these new smoking areas can be dotted all over the casinos, which is completely useless.”

“Hey, these casinos don’t care,” Legge added. “You give them a ban, they’ll knock down their casino and go to another state. We need them. They don’t need New Jersey.”

Smokers’ rights

On the one-year anniversary of the New Jersey’s Smoke-Free Air Act, there seems to be a delicate balance of acceptance and anger among state smokers.

While Vilinsky said he couldn’t understand a smoking ban where alcohol is consumed (“You’re not there to care about your health,” he said), fellow smoker Latanya Knibbs of Somerset, noted: “If somebody’s smoking around me and I’m not smoking, it bothers me.”

Even cigar smoker Len Derasmo of Hillsborough, frequenting Number One Bar & Grille in Bound Brook, said he can’t stand walking outside of a mall where people are smoking. “I’ve got two kids, and we’ve got to walk through this cloud of smoke,” Derasmo said.

But the most dedicated of smokers feel their rights have been taken away by the ban. “Smoking bans are based upon lies, built upon a foundation of fear fostered by a deliberate twisting of the science and are used for social engineering, not for the betterment of nonsmokers’ health,” said Michael McFadden, Mid-Atlantic Director of The Smoker’s Club Inc. and author of the book “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains.”

Ultimately, McFadden said, the ban will make both smokers and nonsmokers unhappy.

“Before the ban, a person could pretty freely walk to a smoke-free bar or restaurant, go in, enjoy themselves and walk home with almost no encounters of smoke,” he said. “Now of course, they have to walk by smoke and smokers all the way to and from their evening.”

Firms complain about smoking ban
4/9/07
The statewide indoor public smoking ban enacted a year ago is hurting businesses to the point that they have to close, business leaders say.

N.J.’s smoking ban blamed
Some firms and organizations say they make far less a year after the law took effect.
But lawmakers say benefits are worth the cost.

April 8, 2007
By Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer

Jon Perper says he’ll close his Woodcrest bowling center in June and knows of about 10 other New Jersey centers expected to follow.

Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, says hundreds of restaurants, bars and taverns have seen sales decline, by as much as 50 percent; others have closed in the last year.

Meanwhile, many veterans’ posts, fraternal organizations, billiard parlors, and charitable bingo and raffle groups have watched their take drop.

A year after the state’s indoor public smoking ban went into effect, employers and organizations across New Jersey are complaining that their business has gone up in smoke.

Smoking customers – especially from Pennsylvania – are staying home or taking their patronage to Philadelphia’s suburbs, where there is no ban, business owners say. Indoor public smoking also is prohibited in Philadelphia.

But New Jersey lawmakers said they had seen little if any negative effect in the state and are unlikely to adjust the ban, unless it is to eliminate the exemption for casinos.

“The Legislature would have to see data before it would be prepared to subject people to the health risks of indoor smoke,” said Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. (D., Burlington), a physician and sponsor of the ban. “It would be a very tough road to travel.”

Another sponsor, Sen. John Adler (D., Camden), said similar smoking restrictions had worked in New York and California with no economic disruption. A ban is being considered in Pennsylvania.

“There is no reason it won’t work in New Jersey,” Adler said. “People have to adjust their personal habits to abide by the law.”

The law’s first year “has been almost entirely good,” he added. “It’s hard to quantify lives saved and illnesses avoided.”

Many business owners, however, say they have had no trouble quantifying financial losses.

“We immediately saw a dramatic hit in the bar part of our business,” Finnigan’s, said Perper, 52, as he sat in an empty Finnigan’s in Cherry Hill’s Woodcrest Shopping Center. “This was like Cheers. People would come here after work and watch the bowling” through a big window behind the bar.

“But business dropped off 20 percent compared to the same time the year before. I also saw a 10 percent drop in open play at night. I knew what it was immediately. . . . The smoking law has improved the environment in the bowling centers unfortunately at the cost of doing business.”

Perper, chairman of the political action committee for the 35-member New Jersey Bowling Proprietors Association, said his losses and slim profit margin had forced his decision to close the center, which his father opened in 1960.

He plans to sell the liquor license and concentrate on reshaping his Playdrome on Kings Highway in Cherry Hill into a family entertainment center with bowling, billiards, and rides and other attractions for children, he said. He also owns bowling centers in Pennsville, N.J., where the landlord has helped by lowering the rent, and in Devon and Allentown.

His centers in New Jersey “have a high customer base from Pennsylvania, where there is no smoking ban,” said Perper, who said he had lost about $500,000 in gross revenue at the Cherry Hill and Woodcrest locations in the last year. “If we had smoking and Pennsylvania didn’t, they would be flocking over here.”

While the law exempts casinos, Atlantic City has taken measures that are soon expected to require 75 percent of the gambling floors to be smoke-free. Some New Jersey legislators, including Adler, also have sponsored legislation to eliminate the casino exemption.

Adler, Conaway, and other ban proponents, including the American Cancer Society and the Summit-based New Jersey GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution), argue that the health benefits far outweigh any inconveniences. In New Jersey, an estimated 2,000 people die of secondhand smoke each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

While having benefits, the Legislature’s action also has disadvantages, according to the state hospitality industry, which brought in $3.9 billion last year.

Dowdell, of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, which represents 1,200 members, said hundreds of the state’s 23,000 eating and drinking establishments had been hurt.

While many others reported no financial impact or even a slight increase in sales, business at places depending more heavily on liquor sales dropped “anywhere from 5 to 50 percent,” Dowdell said.

Among them is the traditional corner tavern, “where people would go to smoke, meet friends and have a burger,” she said. “Now they’re saying, ‘If I can’t smoke, I’ll buy a six-pack and have a cookout at home.’ . . .

“You can’t unring the bell. For some, the damage is done.”

Eleanore Travia, former owner of Illusions, a go-go bar in Florence, knows firsthand. After the number of customers declined precipitously, she closed her doors Feb. 1 and put the business up for sale.

“My business was down 65 percent on April 16 last year – the day after the law went into effect – and it never came back,” said Travia, 64, whose family owned the bar since the 1950s.

“I had a friendly neighborhood place. To hell with these people,” she said, referring to smoking-ban supporters. “My $40,000 in sales tax is gone. I had 15 employees regularly and 150 dancers over the course of the year. Does New Jersey care they don’t have jobs? They don’t care. I would have stayed another 15 years, but now I’m done with New Jersey.”

Organizations that depend on games to raise money also have been hit. Attendance at bingo games in the state has dropped 25 percent to 30 percent, said William Yorke, a regulatory compliance consultant and retired executive director of the state’s Legalized Games of Chance Control Commission.

“The typical bingo player is a smoker,” said Yorke, vice president of product development for Continental State Fair Bingo in Belleville, N.J., which provides bingo supplies and instant raffle tickets.

As a lobbyist for the bowling centers, Dennis M. Culnan Sr. tried to persuade legislators to allow the construction of ventilated smoking rooms, such as those in New York and Maryland.

He sent a bowling shoe to every lawmaker to make a point: Bowlers can’t go outside to smoke because their leather-bottom shoes can get damp and become slip-and-fall hazards when they return to the hardwood lanes.

“That problem – over liability – makes the bowling centers unique,” Culnan said.

Jon Kroljic, general manager and vice president of Perper’s Woodcrest Playdrome, said he’d be sorry to leave the business where he has had so many pleasant memories.

“It’s been home to me. Everybody knows your name here,” he said. “You don’t feel like a stranger.”

Bowler Henry Baldyga, 82, of Voorhees, was the first customer to cast a ball down an alley at the Woodcrest bowling center – and he plans to be the last.

“I bowled at other places over the years, but this was the best,” he said. “I’m very disappointed.”

“We don’t hire smokers” due to health costs. “Now we don’t hire cancer victims due to health costs” What goes around comes around.
– A Newsletter Reader

Cancer patient critical of casino smoking is fired

03/5/07

ATLANTIC CITY — A veteran casino worker who is suing the Tropicana Casino and Resort, claiming a quarter-century of secondhand smoke gave him lung cancer, has been fired.

Vincent Rennich, 49, of Somers Point, has been among the most vocal advocates of a total smoking ban in Atlantic City’s 11 casinos. He has become for many the face of the casino anti-smoking movement, and has sought to publicize working conditions on the casino floors.

“They threw me under the bus,” Rennich said today, a day after being informed by a supervisor that he was among the latest wave of Tropicana employees being let go. “How can you fire a guy with lung cancer who’s suing you? Maybe they don’t realize the ramifications. Or maybe they’re heartless. Or maybe all of the above.”

The Tropicana said it would not comment on Rennich’s dismissal or the other layoffs. However, a casino official who asked not to be identified because the matter involved personnel issues denied that Rennich was singled out.

“I honestly do not believe he was singled out on any level,’ said the official. “People have lost their jobs simply due to a restructuring of the company. He is one of many.”

Since late January, the Tropicana has laid off more than 200 people in Atlantic City, the official said.

Rennich, a table games supervisor, said he was told Sunday night that he was being terminated.

“They said they are reducing staff, and based on my performance evaluation — which is pretty good, by the way — I was being let go,” he said.

He grabbed his coat, said goodbye to friends and co-workers and left the building.

“People were crying, coming up to me and hugging and kissing me,” he said.

Rennich is suing the Tropicana’s parent corporation, claiming it failed to protect him and others from the dangers of secondhand smoke. The suit, filed last July and pending in state Superior Court, named Aztar Corp., which was acquired by Columbia Entertainment, the gambling arm of Fort Mitchell, Ky.-based hotel operator Columbia Sussex Corp.

He says he has never smoked. He had a third of his right lung removed in September 2005 and must see a doctor every three months to make sure the cancer does not reappear.

Rennich said his health insurance coverage will only last for 30 days. After that, he must pay $800 a month to continue it on his own.

“So now I have no job, no health insurance,” he said. “It’s because I’m an outspoken activist, and that’s not going to change.”

He said he has consulted with the lawyer who is already representing him in his suit against the Tropicana, but does not know what his next step might be.

Atlantic City had been set in January to enact a total ban on smoking at the casinos. But after fierce opposition from the casino industry, which feared the loss of 20 percent of its revenue, and as many as 3,400 jobs, the City Council adopted a compromise in which smoking is to be restricted to no more than 25 percent of the gambling floor.

That measure is due to take effect April 15 unless an effort currently under way in the state legislature to ban all smoking in casinos is adopted by then.

Senate is moving toward total ban on casino smoking
Bill would trump A.C. partition ordinance

February 27, 2007
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG, Star-Ledger Staff

Less than three weeks after the Atlantic City Council voted to banish smoking from three-quarters of casino gambling floors, a Senate committee approved a bill yesterday to snuff it out altogether.

Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), a sponsor of the casino smoking ban and chairman of the Senate Health Committee, said Atlantic City’s ordinance “forced the issue” by requiring casinos to erect partitions and establish smoking areas.

“We can’t allow the casinos to make an investment in what will be failed smoking chambers and two or three years from now tell them to tear them out,” Vitale said.

He said second-hand smoke cannot be adequately removed by air filtration systems and “lingers for hours and hours,” posing risks to casino dealers, cocktail waitresses and cleaning staff.

Herding all smokers onto just a quarter of the gambling floor makes the problem worse, Vitale added, because it “makes the air quality that much more dangerous.” He likened tolerating known smoking risks on a quarter of a casino floor to “saying 25 percent of coal mines don’t have to be safe.”

In written comments submitted to the senators, Joseph Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, urged them to allow the compromise ordinance to take effect. He said it “enables us to compete with the casinos in Pennsylvania and Connecticut that permit smoking.”

But the Senate Health Committee unanimously approved the bill (S1089) and sent it to the full Senate, where Vitale assessed its chances of passage as “very good.” It would eliminate an exemption for casino gambling floors and simulcasting facilities in a state law that last year banned smoking in bars, restaurants and other establishments open to the public.

State Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs called that law “a great public health victory” that fell short by failing to protect casino workers from “the proven toxic effects of second-hand.”

“All workers in our state deserve the same protection,” Jacobs said. He cited a report by the U.S. Surgeon General last summer that found “there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke.”

Regina Carlson, executive director of the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP), said Rhode Island casinos have walled-off smoking sections and they do not work. She said the air inside the smoking sections is much worse while the air in the rest of the casino is still polluted.

Carlson said if Atlantic City casinos segregate all smokers into a quarter of the gambling area, “we predict it will be four times as smoky as it is now.”

Several casino workers said they fear being forced to work in those smoke-filled rooms. Vince Rennich, a casino worker for 25 years who blames his lung cancer on second-hand smoke, said, “We are getting sick and we are dying.”

Complete Atlantic City Casino Smoking Ban Sought by Senators

22 Feb 2007
By TOM HESTER Jr., The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. — Unhappy with a partial casino smoking ban recently approved by Atlantic City, state senators on Wednesday moved to completely prohibit smoking in the city’s 11 casinos by expanding a state law banning smoking in most public places.

Sen. Joseph Vitale said the Senate health committee that he chairs will hold a hearing Monday on imposing a total casino smoking ban.

“Its time to save the lives of the thousands of casino workers who are at risk because of second hand smoke,” said Vitale, D-Middlesex.

The bill would amend a state law passed last year that banned smoking in bars, restaurants and most other public places but exempted casinos.

The city council in Atlantic City was poised to enact its own casino smoking ban, which would have made New Jersey the largest gambling destination in the nation to do so. But city officials backed away amid opposition from the casino industry, which claimed a ban would mean losing 20 percent in profits and as many as 3,400 jobs.

Instead, the city’s law gives casinos until April 15 to set up temporary enclosures for smoking areas. They would have to be separated by floor-to-ceiling walls and include powerful ventilation systems to suck smoke out of the building.

Karen Blumenfeld, policy and legal director for the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, has said her group studied a similar partial smoking ban in Rhode Island last summer and found widespread instances of people smoking in nonsmoking areas.

Vitale and other bill sponsors said the city law isn’t enough.

“The facts are in on secondhand smoke, and they don’t bode well for casino workers,” Vitale said. “We need to show them we value their lives as much as the lives of all the other people who now enjoy smoke-free workplaces.”

Another bill sponsor, Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, said casino workers “deserve to breathe clear air without the health risks associated with second hand smoke.”

“These workers should not have to face a choice between health and unemployment,” Adler said.

Vitale scoffed at arguments a smoking ban would cost casino revenue and jobs.

“Surely, the powerful and creative minds who built the colossal monuments of the gambling industry in Atlantic City can conjure up ways to keep luring people to casinos without killing the help,” Vitale said.

A spokeswoman for Casino Association of New Jersey President Joseph A. Corbo Jr. said he had no comment on the plan.

Atlantic City Ban is a Go
February 09, 2007
Michael Moretti

Atlantic City gamblers could have less room to puff very soon. The city council this week gave final approval to extend New Jersey’s smoking ban to casino gambling floors.

If signed by Mayor Robert W. Levy Sr., the ban would go into effect on April 15 and eliminate smoking from 75 percent of the gambling floors in the city’s 11 casinos, which include the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, Caesars Atlantic City and the Trump Taj Mahal. The other 25 percent of the floor would remain smoker-friendly, allowing smokers to stay inside and light up while they play. Per the measure, smoking sections would have to be walled off from the rest of the casino floor and equipped with their own air filtration system.

When the state’s smoking ban, called the Clean Indoor Air Act, was passed in January 2006, it exempted gambling floors. The exemption was granted because of the casinos’ fears of revenue losses and competition from tribal gaming hot spots in Connecticut and New York State. The exemption has been a bone of contention with advocates of the ban and with other hospitality businesses in the state that came under the umbrella of the law.

Both Sides ‘Butt’ Heads On A.C. Casino Smoking Ban
Feb 8, 2007
Cydney Long

The smoke has not cleared after the approval of a partial smoking ban, for Atlantic City’s casino gaming floors.

It’s being viewed as a victory or a mess, depending on which side you talk to.

Last year, New Jersey passed a law banning smoking on public places except for casino floors though Wednesday night’s vote be viewed as a victory for casinos who will continue to cash in on smokers. But a loss for workers who fear they will now be forced to work in more concentrated smoking areas.

“Can’t get away from the smoke it’s everywhere, even more so now,” said Rennich.

Table games supervisor at he Tropicana Vinnie Rennich is speaking on behalf of hundred of fellow casino workers.

This after the Atlantic City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday night that would require casinos to make 75 percent of the gaming floor smoke free and the remaining 25 percent for gaming smokers.

“I think it’s going to be five times the legal limit set by the EPA for exposure to human beings,” said Rennich.

A non-smoker, husband and father of two, Rennich was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago. He blames 25 years of breathing second hand smoke. He has a clean bill of health right now but at Wednesday night’s vote Rennich asked city council members and casino executives this question:

“Will you be the pal bearers at my funeral?” asked Rennich.

“It’s bad. They should have either no smoking completely or make it more ventilation,” said Sean Martin.

“Some people, they’re never going to give up smoking. So you got to have a place for them to go. I think that’s going to be the most crowded room in the casino,” said Marilyn Yedziniak.

Rennich fears a year will pass before the casinos build and ventilate the smoking areas, let alone decide who will work in the unhealthy air.

“As to where, who, how, and when? Where the imaginary smoke line stops,” said Rennich.

Harrah’s Entertainment responded in a written statement. In part, it is exploring all of its options in regard to the smoking ban, this to: “Find a practical solution to serve a valuable customers as well as employee needs.”

There is still much red tape to be sorted through.

N.J. Casinos Get Limited Smoking Ban
February 6, 2007
WAYNE PARRY

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Smokers will still be able to light up in New Jersey’s 11 casinos, but they will have a lot less room to do it under a city law passed on Wednesday.

The measure designates a quarter of each casino’s gaming floor as a smoking area. It goes into effect April 15.

Sharon Carfagno, a casino worker, listens as council members vote on a proposed smoking ban during a City Council meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007. Atlantic City council members voted to pass a 75 percent ban on smoking in the city’s 13 casinos. (AP Photo/Mary Godleski) (Mary Godleski – AP)

Tommy G. Thompson, a former Cabinet member, is a panel chairman. (Alex Wong — Getty Images)

The City Council had been poised to enact a law that would have made New Jersey the largest gambling destination in the nation to ban smoking, but backed down after furious opposition from the casino industry, which feared the loss of 20 percent of its revenue and 3,400 jobs.

While the state Legislature passed a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars last April, but casinos were exempted.

The casino industry said it could live with the compromise because it imposes less of an economic hardship on them, but the decision left many casino workers and anti-smoking groups feeling betrayed.

“Every other restaurant, every other business, every other public place in New Jersey gets to breathe clean air except us,” said Rona Bavuso, a cocktail waitress at Harrah’s Atlantic City who says she has suffered ill health effects for years from breathing in secondhand smoke.

Companies with stakes in the Atlantic City casino smoking ban include Columbia Entertainment, Harrah’s Entertainment, Boyd Gaming Corp., MGM Mirage and Trump Entertainment Resorts.

Casinos seek profit from new smoke ban

January 26, 2007
DONALD WITTKOWSKI

ATLANTIC CITY — Now 72, Jeanne Starace estimates that she has been smoking for nearly 60 years. She has no plans to quit, even if a proposed new law bars her from lighting up in most areas of the casino hotels.

“I’m not crazy about this,” said Starace, a Toms River resident who was puffing on a Pall Mall while playing a slot machine Thursday at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. “I’ll have to see how this turns out. I may have to gamble somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn’t have a smoking restriction.”

To keep Starace and other smokers from fleeing Atlantic City, casinos will have to spend millions of dollars for enclosed smoking areas equipped with special ventilation systems. A new ordinance given preliminary approval Wednesday night by City Council will ban smoking on all but 25 percent of the casino gaming floors starting April 15. A final vote is scheduled Feb. 7.

Already, the smoking areas are being dubbed smoking shacks, butt huts and the ominous sounding “death chambers.” But for the casinos, they may be profit centers.

Casino executives are discussing ways to take advantage of the smoking areas, including cramming them with high-denomination slot machines and high-stakes table games that traditionally draw a heavy smoking crowd.

Another possibility is to make the lucrative Asian-themed gaming areas special smoking rooms. As a group, Asian gamblers are known to be more tolerant of smoking.

“We know for a fact that the Asian games area will be a section we would like to keep for smoking,” said J. Carlos Tolosa, Eastern Division president for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., owner of four Atlantic City casinos.

Tolosa noted that Harrah’s Entertainment may consider concentrating its high-end games in the smoking areas, but it is premature to say what will ultimately happen at its Harrah’s, Showboat, Bally’s and Caesars casinos.

James B. Perry, president and chief executive officer of Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., operator of Donald Trump’s three casinos, said his company will explore other options than just placing the most profitable games in smoking areas scattered throughout the gaming floor.

“The traditional approach is to take the Asian pit, the baccarat tables and high-limit slot games and cram them in the smoking areas. I’m not so sure that other solutions aren’t better,” he said.

Whatever is decided, the casinos will take a risk by investing in the smoking areas, Perry said. One possibility is that City Council or the state Legislature could overhaul the anti-smoking law to impose a total smoking ban, meaning that millions of dollars will have been wasted by the casinos in building smoking sections.

“We are dealing with a dynamic situation with City Council and the state. Things could change,” Perry said. “You don’t want to force yourself into making significant capital costs that you may have to change in a short period of time.”

City Council originally considered a total smoking ban, but reached a compromise with the casino industry for the 25 percent exception. Moreover, state legislation is pending that would impose a complete casino smoking ban, although its fate is uncertain.

Perry said the partial smoking ban poses two other significant challenges: How will the smoking areas be staffed, and how will the casinos accommodate the smokers without offending the nonsmokers?

“We’re trying to implement a change that will benefit our customers who don’t smoke as well as creating an environment for customers who do smoke to still feel comfortable,” Perry said.

Anti-smoking groups have joined with some casino employees to label the proposed smoking areas as “death chambers” or “gas chambers.” Warning of the dangers of secondhand smoke, some employees are fearful they will be forced to work in the smoking areas or lose their jobs if they refuse.

“I’ve been asking around to find out who would volunteer and still nobody would say they will outright volunteer,” said Jennifer Guillermain, a Caesars Atlantic City gaming supervisor who has been lobbying for a complete smoking ban. “People feel as though they will be forced to work in these rooms. Rumor has it they will be sent home or blacklisted if they don’t.”

Tolosa and Perry said their casinos are leaning toward a volunteer system instead of requiring their employees to staff the smoking areas. Harrah’s and Trump are Atlantic City’s two largest casino operators.

“We have talked to our employees. So far, we have a lot of employees who have raised their hands and said they are willing to volunteer to work in the smoking areas,” Tolosa said.

Starace, the gambler who has smoked nearly 60 years, also expressed concern about the employees who will work in the smoking sections. She suggested that they be given extra pay to compensate them for the health dangers.

“You should pay the people in the smoking areas more than the people in the nonsmoking areas,” she said between puffs on her cigarette.

First OK Passes on Casino Smoking Ban

Jan. 25, 2007
WAYNE PARRY

Casinos here are a breath away from partitioning their floors into smoking and nonsmoking areas, after a compromise of an earlier proposal to snuff cigarettes passed an initial vote Wednesday.

If the plan passes the City Council, a quarter of each casino’s gaming floor would be designated smoking areas. The final vote is expected in two weeks.

The original plan to completely ban smoking in casinos would have made New Jersey the nation’s largest gambling destination to do so. Supporters of that proposal, like Vince Rennich, say that plan should not have changed.

Rennich, a 25-year table games supervisor with the Tropicana Casino & Resort, blames his lung cancer on having to breathe secondhand smoke for so long.

“They cut a back room deal on this and betrayed us,” he said. “They stuck it to us pretty good.”

The council came up with the compromise after furious opposition to the ban from the casino industry, which feared the loss of 20 percent of its revenue and 3,400 jobs.

Councilman Dennis Mason said the smoking areas would be walled off from floor to ceiling, and equipped with powerful ventilation systems to suck smoke out of the air and carry it out of the building.

“Everybody wins in this,” Mason said.

Jennifer Guillermain, who has worked as a gaming supervisor for 16 years at Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino, said employees are already balking at working in the smoking rooms.

“No one is going to volunteer. And now we’re afraid for our jobs if we say we don’t want to work in those rooms,” she said.

She said the solution is to create non-gaming smoking lounges where patrons wishing to light up can do so, then return to the tables.

On the other side of the debate is Leroy Parden, a slots player from Philadelphia. Parden lit up a cigarette while pulling the lever at Resorts Atlantic City before the council met.

“I think it should be wherever you play your money at,” he said. “You relax with a cigarette while you’re playing a game. At least I do.”

Some companies with stakes in the Atlantic City casino smoking ban include Columbia Entertainment, Harrah’s Entertainment, Boyd Gaming Corp., MGM Mirage and Trump Entertainment Resorts.

Compromise would allow smoking in 25 percent of each NJ casino

January 23, 2007
By Wayne Parry, Associated Press Writer

Smokers would still be able to light up in parts of New Jersey’s 11 casinos under a compromise plan to be introduced Wednesday night.

The City Council in Atlantic City initially intended to vote on a measure that would have imposed a total ban on smoking in casinos, closing the last major loophole in New Jersey’s sweeping public smoking law.

But that measure was fiercely opposed by the casino industry, which predicted 3,400 jobs and 20 percent of the gaming halls’ revenue could be lost as their patrons took their cigarettes — and their money — elsewhere.

Under the compromise proposal, crafted in conjunction with the casino industry, smoking would be banned on 75 percent of each casino’s gaming floor. The remaining 25 percent would be walled off and equipped with powerful ventilation systems to suck smoke out of the air and carry it out of the building.

“I believe it’s a win-win for everyone, including people who wanted smoking banned,” said Councilman Dennis Mason. “They won. They got 75 percent of the place banned, and the casinos won a little, too, because their customers still get to smoke.”

A total smoking ban would have made New Jersey the biggest gambling spot in the country to prohibit lighting up. Though there are bans in gambling sites in Massachusetts, Delaware and elsewhere, the better-known destinations such as Las Vegas, Biloxi, Miss., and many American Indian-run casinos allow smoking. Newly opened slots parlors in nearby Pennsylvania also permit smoking.

New Jersey banned smoking last April in most indoor public places statewide, but exempted the casinos. However, the legislation gave towns and cities the authority to enact tougher local restrictions, and Atlantic City used that provision to try to ban casino smoking.

The casino industry has threatened legal action to block a total ban. Over weeks of negotiations, it signaled it would accept an arrangement in which smoking would be banned in 60 percent of gaming space before finally agreeing to the 75 percent ban, Mason said.

The industry has already agreed not to challenge the compromise, he added. Joseph Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment.

Areas where smoking would be permitted “would be fully enclosed, from floor to ceiling, behind closed doors,” Mason said. “There’s no way the smoke gets out. I’m told the air in there could be better than the air in the rest of the place.”

Nonsense, said Regina Carlson, executive director of the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, an anti-smoking advocacy organization.

“Ventilation does not work,” she said. “In order to truly clear the air of smoke, you would need air exchanges that would be equivalent to a tornado. It can’t solve the problem. It can be very simply solved with a no-smoking policy.”

If the revised ordinance is passed after a second hearing on Feb. 7, each casino would have to submit its plans for partitioning its gaming floors to the state Department of Community Affairs, Mason said. The new configurations would take effect 90 days after the state agency approves each casino’s plan, he said.

Opposing sides speak out on smoking ban

By DEREK HARPER Staff Writer, (609) 272-7203
January 11, 2007

ATLANTIC CITY — After four meetings and hours of discussion, 30 people told City Council they still come down on either side of a proposed public smoking ban.

Those supporting the ban underscored the health risks associated with smoking, while the opposition feared it would drive away gamblers.

If passed and signed by Mayor Bob Levy, the ban would eliminate smoking in all public places in the resort April 15. The city ban would close a loophole in 2006 state antismoking legislation that specifically exempted casino gaming floors.

Bryant Nelson, the first to speak, said that after working at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino for 17 years, he opposes the ban. He feared it could mean business downturns that would lead to casino layoffs.

“I think it’s bad enough that the Sands (Hotel and Casino) closed down and you now have all these people doing whatever they can wherever to make a living,” Nelson said. “Smoking and gambling go together, you know?”

Several other self-identified casino workers, including Bob Newman, asked council to go slowly and include language that would give the casinos the chance to build separate accommodations for smokers.

Said Mary Kramer, “They used to build non-smoking rooms. Let’s turn that around” and build smoker-only rooms.

Other workers, such as Isabella Guall, said that after working 22 years in the casinos, smokers trigger work-related asthma so bad that despite sleeping on three pillows, there are nights she gets no rest.

“There is nothing I can do,” she said. “I can’t breathe.”

She showed councilmembers the gallon baggie of medication she uses to treat the condition and gave council a sheaf of papers she said were personal medical records supporting her testimony.

She urged council to weigh casino workers’ health above casino industry profits. “Think of the health issues. People are getting sick and people are dying,” she said.

Twenty-six year casino employee Kim Hesse agreed. “There is no issue as far as I am concerned, other than the health issue.”

Added resort resident and retired doctor Howard Barsky, “I keep hearing about going slow,” he said to council, adding, “You have put (enactment) off until April 15. The more we put it off, the more nails we drive into someone’s coffin.”

In a Wednesday night statement, Casino Association of New Jersey President Joseph A. Corbo Jr., who did not attend, said the industry appreciates council’s deliberation.

However, “We remain very concerned that if an absolute smoking ban is imposed business volumes will decrease appreciably jeopardizing the continued employment of a significant portion of our employees,” he wrote. Layoffs could also have a trickle-down impact on regional businesses that depend on casino worker money.

It could also jeopardize expansions or new development.

After the meeting, several councilmembers said that opposition to the smoke ban has come almost exclusively at the hearings. Councilman Gene Robinson said that while he has gotten a few calls and e-mails opposing the move, the overwhelming number support it.

Councilman G. Bruce Ward agreed, saying ban supporters have outpaced opposition “99 to 1.”

To e-mail Derek Harper at The Press: dharper@pressofac.com

WHAT’S NEXT
Atlantic City Council will take final testimony on its proposed smoking ban during another special committee meeting at
5 p.m. Jan. 17 in City Hall’s council chambers. A final vote is scheduled for the 5 p.m. Jan. 24 City Council meeting.

Smoking ban could prove costly to casinos

January 8, 2007
DONALD WITTKOWSKI

ATLANTIC CITY — At Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, fresh air is pulled in three times an hour by the building’s massive ventilation system.

Of Borgata’s 178 gaming tables, 142 feature a “curtain” of air that blows cigarette and cigar smoke away from the dealers’ faces.

And a prototype mini-baccarat table at Borgata has a miniature filtration system that doubles as an ashtray to magically suck away any tobacco smoke. Poof, it just disappears.

Borgata and other casinos in town have spent millions of dollars on high-tech ventilation systems and fancy “smokeless” gaming tables and ashtrays to protect their customers and employees from harmful smoke.

Now they are facing the possibility that much of the money will have been wasted — and the special equipment will be unneeded — when Atlantic City’s proposed casino smoking ban takes effect in April.