Casino Smoke Update
Inside Gaming: Macau bans smoking on floors
June 1, 2014
By HOWARD STUTZ, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Come October, Macau’s casinos won’t smell the same.
The special administrative region government last month told its resort operators that smoking will be banned on mass-market gaming floors starting Oct. 6.
Here’s the surprise: Macau’s six casino operators — including MGM Resorts International, Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Las Vegas Sands Corp. — asked for the prohibition.
The ban doesn’t include Macau’s private gaming rooms. Casinos can build smoking rooms on the gaming floors, which have their own heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. But the rooms can’t include table games or slot machines.
So with the world’s largest gaming market by revenue going smoke-free, will Strip casinos ever embrace a full-scale smoking ban?
Gaming insiders laugh at that notion. Any change in attitude toward smoking would defy the “do anything” mantra that is Las Vegas.
The Strip has adopted some nonsmoking ideas. Several casinos, notably CityCenter’s Aria, have banned smoking in race and sports books. Most poker rooms are smoke-free, including the Rio’s 60,000-square-foot convention center, which began hosting the World Series of Poker last week.
Most casinos offer nonsmoking gaming areas while companies tout modern technology that cleans and filters indoor air at increased rates. Some table game pits and slot machine areas have special ventilation units.
Stephanie Steinberg, however, doesn’t believe Strip casinos are doing enough to protect dealers and other employees from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. She hopes the Strip will join Macau’s clean-air embrace.
As chairwoman of the Washington, D.C.-based Smoke-Free Gaming of America, Steinberg has long lobbied for casinos to ban indoor smoking, with a measure of success.
Colorado’s casino industry, which initially allowed smoking, banned the activity in 2008. Ohio’s gaming market opened as nonsmoking. Massachusetts’ casinos will be nonsmoking.
Genting’s Resorts World New York casino, which operates 5,000 slot machines and is touted as the single largest slot gaming property by revenue in the country, allows smoking only near parking garage entrances and at the front casino entrance, not on the gaming floor.
In Maryland, which banned smoking in casinos when table games were added, both the $443 million Horseshoe Casino Baltimore and the nearly $1 billion MGM Resorts’ National Harbor development will open smoke-free.
In Atlantic City, 75 percent of the casino floors are nonsmoking.
Steinberg still believes Las Vegas can change.
“The examples are being set,” Steinberg said.
MGM Resorts spokesman Clark Dumont said his company, which operates 10 Strip casinos, recognizes “that smoking is a dynamic and complex issue, one that we will continue to monitor and to discuss.”
Analysts said Macau’s government won’t do anything that might upset the enclave’s record-smashing gaming revenue production, which hit $45.2 billion in 2013 and already is up 17.5 percent through April.
The ban affects traditional Macau gaming floors, which are filled with baccarat tables and other games that attract the growing middle class from mainland China. It exempts the high-end private VIP gaming rooms, where big-spending players wager millions of dollars away from the public’s prying eyes.
“We remain confident that there will not be a measurably negative impact on gross gaming revenue,” U nion Gaming Group analyst Grant Govertsen, who is based in Macau, wrote in a research note.
“With respect to the mass-market segment that will be subject to this new dynamic, we believe that gaming will always trump smoking,” Govertsen said. “For those customers who absolutely must smoke, the smoking rooms will likely be in extremely close proximity to gaming floors, suggesting an absolute minimum amount of time spent away from tables.”
In December, casino operators independently petitioned the government, asking that mass-market gaming floors go smoke-free in exchange for allowing smoking rooms.
The move came when it looked as if the government would require 14 casinos that repeatedly had failed air quality tests to implement smoke-free mass-market floors. It was thought the rest of the industry would follow.
“With nearly five months to go before this measure goes into effect, we believe this affords each operator enough time to design, construct and implement smoking rooms,” Govertsen said.
He said he expects most casinos will add multiple smoking rooms, given “the sheer size of many (gaming) floors.”
China is considered a nation of smokers. According to different studies, at least 25 percent of China’s population smokes.
By exempting private gaming rooms from the smoking ban, Macau won’t disrupt activity in the market’s most profitable venues.
“We think that VIP and premium mass will be insulated,” Govertsen said.
MGM China CEO Grant Bowie said in an email exchange he expects the Macau government will eventually make some of the private gaming rooms nonsmoking.
Bowie said he didn’t expect the change to hurt the company’s operations in Macau, where it owns the MGM Macau and is building a $2.9 billion resort on the Cotai Strip.
“While a lot of customers smoke, I don’t think it will change the model,” Bowie said. “Like all initiatives like this, we will need to monitor. The trend to reduce smoking in enclosed public spaces is a worldwide trend.”
Macau imposed a partial smoking ban in some casino areas in 2013. The move didn’t slow gaming revenue production.
The full-scale smoking ban takes effect following Golden Week, one of Macau’s more lucrative holidays.
“I believe that the air quality of the mass-market floors will be improved after the gaming venues install smoking rooms,” Macau’s Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Cheong U told Asian media.
June 1, 2014
By HOWARD STUTZ, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Come October, Macau’s casinos won’t smell the same.
The special administrative region government last month told its resort operators that smoking will be banned on mass-market gaming floors starting Oct. 6.
Here’s the surprise: Macau’s six casino operators — including MGM Resorts International, Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Las Vegas Sands Corp. — asked for the prohibition.
The ban doesn’t include Macau’s private gaming rooms. Casinos can build smoking rooms on the gaming floors, which have their own heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. But the rooms can’t include table games or slot machines.
So with the world’s largest gaming market by revenue going smoke-free, will Strip casinos ever embrace a full-scale smoking ban?
Gaming insiders laugh at that notion. Any change in attitude toward smoking would defy the “do anything” mantra that is Las Vegas.
The Strip has adopted some nonsmoking ideas. Several casinos, notably CityCenter’s Aria, have banned smoking in race and sports books. Most poker rooms are smoke-free, including the Rio’s 60,000-square-foot convention center, which began hosting the World Series of Poker last week.
Most casinos offer nonsmoking gaming areas while companies tout modern technology that cleans and filters indoor air at increased rates. Some table game pits and slot machine areas have special ventilation units.
Stephanie Steinberg, however, doesn’t believe Strip casinos are doing enough to protect dealers and other employees from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. She hopes the Strip will join Macau’s clean-air embrace.
As chairwoman of the Washington, D.C.-based Smoke-Free Gaming of America, Steinberg has long lobbied for casinos to ban indoor smoking, with a measure of success.
Colorado’s casino industry, which initially allowed smoking, banned the activity in 2008. Ohio’s gaming market opened as nonsmoking. Massachusetts’ casinos will be nonsmoking.
Genting’s Resorts World New York casino, which operates 5,000 slot machines and is touted as the single largest slot gaming property by revenue in the country, allows smoking only near parking garage entrances and at the front casino entrance, not on the gaming floor.
In Maryland, which banned smoking in casinos when table games were added, both the $443 million Horseshoe Casino Baltimore and the nearly $1 billion MGM Resorts’ National Harbor development will open smoke-free.
In Atlantic City, 75 percent of the casino floors are nonsmoking.
Steinberg still believes Las Vegas can change.
“The examples are being set,” Steinberg said.
MGM Resorts spokesman Clark Dumont said his company, which operates 10 Strip casinos, recognizes “that smoking is a dynamic and complex issue, one that we will continue to monitor and to discuss.”
Analysts said Macau’s government won’t do anything that might upset the enclave’s record-smashing gaming revenue production, which hit $45.2 billion in 2013 and already is up 17.5 percent through April.
The ban affects traditional Macau gaming floors, which are filled with baccarat tables and other games that attract the growing middle class from mainland China. It exempts the high-end private VIP gaming rooms, where big-spending players wager millions of dollars away from the public’s prying eyes.
“We remain confident that there will not be a measurably negative impact on gross gaming revenue,” U nion Gaming Group analyst Grant Govertsen, who is based in Macau, wrote in a research note.
“With respect to the mass-market segment that will be subject to this new dynamic, we believe that gaming will always trump smoking,” Govertsen said. “For those customers who absolutely must smoke, the smoking rooms will likely be in extremely close proximity to gaming floors, suggesting an absolute minimum amount of time spent away from tables.”
In December, casino operators independently petitioned the government, asking that mass-market gaming floors go smoke-free in exchange for allowing smoking rooms.
The move came when it looked as if the government would require 14 casinos that repeatedly had failed air quality tests to implement smoke-free mass-market floors. It was thought the rest of the industry would follow.
“With nearly five months to go before this measure goes into effect, we believe this affords each operator enough time to design, construct and implement smoking rooms,” Govertsen said.
He said he expects most casinos will add multiple smoking rooms, given “the sheer size of many (gaming) floors.”
China is considered a nation of smokers. According to different studies, at least 25 percent of China’s population smokes.
By exempting private gaming rooms from the smoking ban, Macau won’t disrupt activity in the market’s most profitable venues.
“We think that VIP and premium mass will be insulated,” Govertsen said.
MGM China CEO Grant Bowie said in an email exchange he expects the Macau government will eventually make some of the private gaming rooms nonsmoking.
Bowie said he didn’t expect the change to hurt the company’s operations in Macau, where it owns the MGM Macau and is building a $2.9 billion resort on the Cotai Strip.
“While a lot of customers smoke, I don’t think it will change the model,” Bowie said. “Like all initiatives like this, we will need to monitor. The trend to reduce smoking in enclosed public spaces is a worldwide trend.”
Macau imposed a partial smoking ban in some casino areas in 2013. The move didn’t slow gaming revenue production.
The full-scale smoking ban takes effect following Golden Week, one of Macau’s more lucrative holidays.
“I believe that the air quality of the mass-market floors will be improved after the gaming venues install smoking rooms,” Macau’s Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Cheong U told Asian media.
Caesars Palace smoking lawsuit dropped, Wynn suit continues
Dec. 8, 2009
Attorneys have dropped their lawsuit claiming Caesars Palace workers in Las Vegas are exposed to dangerous second-hand cigarette smoke.
Jay Edelson, an attorney with the Chicago law firm KamberEdelson LLC, said the suit filed July 22 in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas was dismissed last week because of circumstances in which the firm could no longer represent the lead plaintiff, Tomo Stephens.
Edelson said Tuesday the firm plans to file another tobacco smoke suit against Caesars Palace and its parent company, Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas, in behalf of a different plaintiff who has yet to be identified.
“We’ll get our day in court,” Edelson said.
In the meantime, KamberEdelson plans to continue pursuing a similar lawsuit filed Oct. 20 against Wynn Las Vegas. Attorneys for Wynn have not yet filed their response to that lawsuit.
In the Caesars Palace case, the suit was dropped just days before the deadline for Harrah’s attorneys to file their response to the allegations. So Harrah’s side of the story was never told in court papers, and the company has declined comment on the litigation.
Stephens said in the initial lawsuit she was a blackjack dealer for about 20 years at Caesars on the Las Vegas Strip and quit her job June 16 on the advice of her doctor.
The federal lawsuit says pre-cancerous cells were found in her stomach and that over the years she was exposed to second-hand smoke causing irritation to her eyes, coughing, sore throat, shortness of breath, dizziness, wheezing or tightness in the chest, headache, nausea and ingestion of cancer-causing chemicals and toxins.
The lawsuit sought to represent as a class all former, current and future Caesars employees exposed to unsafe levels of second-hand smoke.
The lawsuit sought an order requiring Caesars to take “reasonable measures” to protect its employees from second-hand smoke.
Edelson on Tuesday said his firm decided it couldn’t represent Stephens after “outside forces” interfered with the litigation.
He couldn’t say what the outside forces were.
But Edelson said in the Wynn case, the plaintiff’s attorneys were “deeply disappointed” by Nov. 9 comments by Joseph Carbon, director of the Transport Workers U nion Gaming Division (Local 721), that were supportive of Wynn’s efforts to reduce second-hand smoke.
Carbon’s comments were made in the context of the TWU working to sign a collective bargaining agreement with Wynn. The u nion issued a press release with Carbon’s comments after a u nion leader was listed as the plaintiff in the Wynn smoking lawsuit.
In 2007 elections, the TWU won the right to represent some 1,100 dealers at Caesars Palace and Wynn.
The u nion is close to signing a contract with Wynn, but remains far apart in talks with Caesars Palace, TWU spokesman Jamie Horwitz said Tuesday.
GAMBLING AND THE LEGISLATURE: Ashless, ashless, they all fall down?
An order to go smoke-free may cost casinos business, analyst says
April 8, 2007
By ARNOLD M. KNIGHTLY, REVIEW-JOURNAL
By ARNOLD M. KNIGHTLY, REVIEW-JOURNAL
Gaming companies would rather not discuss the prospect of Nevada casinos being forced to go nonsmoking in the near future.
One local gaming company spokeswoman said when asked about the possibility that “the company wasn’t going to deal with conjecture.”
But the writing may be on the wall.
In November, voters passed the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, which banned smoking in most public spaces, including restaurants, lounges and bars with food service, retail and convention areas as well as hotel lobbies. The change didn’t affect casino floors, nightclubs and stand-alone bars without food service.
The casinos exemption may one day drift away like so much smoke, Spectrum Gaming Group gaming analyst Joseph Weinert suggested.
“I think Nevada, like every other state-regulated gaming jurisdiction, is a matter of when not if,” said Weinert.
Bill’s Lake Tahoe went smoke-free in December and now promotes itself as “Tahoe’s Only Non-Smoking Casino.”
Smoke-free casinos have been tried in Nevada before. In 1991, the then-economically troubled, now-closed Silver City casino banned smoking. The decision to turn Bill’s into the state’s only current nonsmoking casino was also one more of economics than health concerns.
“It was a decision made locally just to try it out and try to rejuvenate the business over at Bill’s,” said John Packer, spokesman for Harrah’s Entertainment in Lake Tahoe.
Bill’s is one of three gaming properties Harrah’s Entertainment owns in the Northern Nevada border region. Packer said that Bill’s had been struggling financially compared with the company’s other two properties there, Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and Harveys Lake Tahoe.
Bill’s, a casino-only establishment, has 18,000 square feet of casino space and no real restaurant, except for a Subway sandwich shop. Management felt the property needed to try different ideas to lure customers. So the casino went smoke-free and added single-deck blackjack, 20 times odds on craps and a piano bar.
Foot traffic has increased at Bill’s, Packer said, but he added that it would be hard to single out nonsmoking as the sole reason why. He also said people shouldn’t see Bill’s smoke-free casino as a test program that could spread to other for Harrah’s Entertainment properties throughout the state.
Casino floors are still a haven for smokers, but a study last year by the University of Nevada, Reno found that about only one in five gamblers in Nevada smokes.
Chris Pritsos, chairman of the university’s nutrition department, said he undertook the study to learn how many gamblers smoke.
“Whenever you start talking about a smoking ban, the gaming lobbyists come out say ’70 percent of our clientele smoke,’ ” Pritsos said. “I’ve been before the state Legislature and heard them make that statement. I thought it was important to find out what the real numbers were.”
The study, which surveyed 17,723 gamblers throughout the state from August 2006 through October 2006, found 21.5 percent of gamblers in Las Vegas smoke, while 22.6 percent smoke in Reno-Sparks and 17 percent smoke in Lake Tahoe.
Data for the Las Vegas casinos was gathered during a three-day period in August split between Strip and off-Strip properties. The study found that 20.3 percent of gamblers smoke at Strip properties while 26.3 percent of gamblers smoke off-Strip.
Pritsos said he had expected a number between 30 percent and 40 percent, but added that the study’s figures are near the general United States population average of 20.9 percent. Pritsos said he hasn’t received any comments from the gaming industry, but the state Legislature has asked for a copy.
The study comes as more state legislatures around the country grapple with smoke-free casinos.
The Illinois Senate on March 29 approved a statewide smoking ban that would extend to the riverboat gambling halls and racetracks. If the state House approves the measure in May, the ban would take effect Jan. 1. An amendment was introduced proposing a three-year phase-in for the casinos and racetracks, but it was not adopted.
In March, Colorado lawmakers amended a House bill extending the state smoking ban to casinos by pushing the effective date to July 1, 2008. The bill was approved by the Senate but must return to the House for consideration.
The 11 casinos in Atlantic City have until April 15 to comply with a new law that requires 75 percent of the gaming floor to be nonsmoking.
Harrah’s Entertainment and Columbia Sussex Corp. are building smoking lounges for their properties but fear the properties will take an economic hit.
Weinert said some gaming executives worry that if smoking is illegal in casinos in one area, customers will go elsewhere to gamble and smoke.
“What really concerns the industry, beyond a direct economic hit, is the uneven playing field,” Weinert said. “If Las Vegas operators knew the moment they went smoke-free that the Indian casinos in California and Arizona also went smoke-free, I think they would be less concerned.”
Harrah’s Entertainment spokeswoman Debbie Munch said her company lets patrons request a smoke-free table at any of its eight local properties. But a public relations manager overseeing two of the properties didn’t know of the policy.
Most of the poker rooms and some bingo rooms in Las Vegas are smoke-free.
When asked about the smoking issue and what the future could hold for Nevada gaming, spokeswomen at Station Casinos and Wynn Las Vegas pointed out their latest properties have state-of-the-art ventilation systems that minimize the effect of smoking patrons on nonsmoking ones.
But studies seem to rebut such a claim. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning released a position paper in August 2005 saying “no … engineering approaches, including current and advanced dilution ventilation or air-cleaning technologies, have been demonstrated or should be relied on to control health risks from (environmental tobacco smoke).”
Furthermore, a June study published by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, “Restrictions on smoking can control exposures effectively, but technical approaches involving air cleaning or greater exchange of indoor with outdoor air cannot.”
Weinert said it would surprise him if smoke-free casinos in Nevada happened quickly.
“Given the size of the gaming industry in Nevada relative to any other industry, I would not be surprised to see Nevada be the last to take this up,” Weinert said. “Certainly every gaming executive recognizes they will be smoke-free at some point. But they have a fiduciary duty to, in the meantime, to maximize their revenues.”
Read
Read
ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE DOES NOT CAUSE GENETIC DAMAGE IN CASINO WORKERS
October 22, 2006
David W. Kuneman
Director of Research
The Smoker’s Club, Inc.
Director of Research
The Smoker’s Club, Inc.
This equation actually predicts that nonsmoking male workers with the highest continine levels would have negative genetic damage, based on Pritsos, et. al. data. This, of course is impossible, and proves these data are so fundamentally flawed, that they cannot be used to draw any conclusions.
Read More
Read More
Will smoking ban hurt Nevada casinos?
October 23, 2006
By LIZ BENTSON
By LIZ BENTSON
Neither of two competing measures on next month’s ballot to restrict smoking in Nevada dares to prohibit smoking in casinos.
The gaming-floor exemption to both smoking-ban proposals reflects Nevada’s libertarian attitude toward compulsive behavior and the understanding that smoking, drinking and gambling go hand in hand.
Preventing gamblers from smoking, the assumption goes, would be bad for business, and therefore bad for the state.
Some gaming insiders are quietly worried that in the next decade, a wave of public opinion may be calling for a total ban on casino smoking.
But evidence suggests that Nevada could acclimate to nonsmoking casinos and that the gaming industry could actually benefit by it over the long haul – while sparing casino employees the health risks of working around smokers.
Question 5 on next month’s ballot, supported by the Nevada State Medical Association, the American Cancer Society and other health groups, would ban smoking in most venues save for the gaming floors of casinos. The initiative exempts bars that don’t serve meals, although most bars in Nevada – partly to comply with a law allowing slot machines in bars only if gaming is “incidental” to the business – also prepare food.
Question 4, backed by gaming interests as a response to Question 5, would ban smoking in retail stores, galleries, libraries, museums and similar places that already tend to be nonsmoking, while allowing bars as well as grocery stores and convenience stores with slots to continue to accommodate smokers in those gambling alcoves.
If both petitions get more than half of the vote, the petition with the more votes would win.
The gaming industry’s opposition to smoking bans is based on anecdotal information about customer preferences and a longstanding belief that smokers, who tend to gamble more than nonsmokers, have a right to smoke.
“It would make our job easier if no one smoked, but the fact is that they do,” said Judy Patterson, executive director of the American Gaming Association. “We have to balance two sets of needs.”
To accommodate nonsmokers, some casinos have improved their ventilation systems, leading to noticeably cleaner air. But not all casinos can afford to install the latest technology.
While there are longstanding assumptions that a smoking ban would hurt the casino industry, there is substantial evidence suggesting that smoking bans do not hurt businesses – and over time, might help them.
The casino trade publication Global Gaming Business will soon report a study it commissioned that concluded that casinos might pick up more business than they would lose if they banned smoking. In one poll, 31 percent of casino customers questioned indicated they would visit casinos more often if they were smoke-free, compared with 11 percent who said they would patronize another casino that allowed smoking, according to Global Gaming Business Editor Roger Gros.
“Most casino executives realize that the horse has left the barn and they’re going to have to consider (a smoking ban) now or later,” he said.
Casino executives have not needed to weigh in on the issue so far, because of successful efforts over the years to fend off smoking restrictions.
Dozens of studies indicate that the effects of smoking bans on bars and restaurants in other states, while perhaps not as rosy as some anti-smoking groups would submit, aren’t nearly as gloom-and-doom as predicted.
Government-funded, peer-reviewed studies by academics tend to conclude that smoking bans have had a neutral-to-positive effect on business. Studies funded by the tobacco industry or other business groups suggest the opposite, by downplaying the potential increase in business over time from nonsmoking customers.
Experts on both sides of the debate say tax receipts are the most effective way to analyze the economic effect of smoking bans.
Figures in California and New York, the largest markets with smoking bans, suggest that bans could hurt restaurant and bar business in the short term but that business can improve in the long term.
According to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, taxable sales among bars and taverns statewide fell 3 percent in the first three months of the 2003 smoking ban from the previous year and were relatively flat over the next four quarters. Full-service restaurants averaged 3 percent to 4 percent increases in the four quarters following the ban. Trends for New York City were similar.
The increases occurred at a time when the city and state experienced rising retail sales, while comparisons were made against a period in which New York was still recovering from the residual effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The California Department of Health Services, using state reports on taxable sales from 1990 through 2002, found that the 1995 smoking ban in restaurants was followed by an increase in revenue and the 1998 smoking ban in bars was followed by increased bar revenue.
State statisticians concluded that any loss of business from smokers was “more than offset” by nonsmokers who had previously eschewed smoking environments.
While it’s possible that the increases in revenue might have been larger had smoking remained legal, researchers said that conclusion is unlikely because they found significant increases in revenue even after controlling for trends in entertainment spending in specific counties.
Gaming and tavern interests say tax-revenue information on bars and restaurants isn’t comparable to casinos’ situation.
“We don’t buy the premise that this is California or New York,” said Ron Drake, owner of the Point After Lounge in Las Vegas and a board member of the Nevada Tavern Owners Association, which is backing Question 4. “This is a unique economy based on gaming revenue. Smoking is very much a part of (gamblers’) lives.”
Casinos fear what happened at Casino Windsor, which sits across the Canadian border from three Detroit casinos. It laid off hundreds of people and its revenues dropped about 20 percent in the early weeks of an Ontario smoking ban that took effect in June. Border slowdowns and a strong Canadian dollar also contributed to a decline in business from Americans, some of whom were lost to the Detroit casinos.
Nevada businesses plan appeal of smoking ban ruling
July 08, 2006
Opponents of an anti-smoking ballot question that could ban lighting up in the state’s hotel and motel rooms are appealing a decision to keep the measure on the November ballot to the state Supreme Court.
Michael Hackett, campaign manager for Nevadans for Tobacco-Free Kids, the group supporting the anti-smoking question, said opponents notified the court system on June 30 of their intent to appeal the Carson City District Court ruling to the Supreme Court.
“I’m sure their intent is to get our measure kicked off the ballot,” he said.
On June 5, District Judge Bill Maddox rejected a request from gaming companies, hotels and convenience stores to remove the petition, called the Clean Indoor Air Act, from November’s ballot.
Hackett said his groups didn’t set out to include hotel and motel rooms in the ban. The measure is intended to apply to restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores and bars that serve food.
But Maddox ruled that a hotel or motel is a place of business, not a private residence, and the smoking ban should apply to their rooms.
Hackett is not appealing that ruling, and he said he does not believe that including motel and hotel rooms in the ban will doom the measure in the general election.
“I think it will further entrench the position people already have on the issue,” he said. “I don’t think it will sway voters from one side to the other.”
The ban would not encompass a casino’s gaming areas.
Still some gaming industry officials have expressed concern about the effect of a hotel room smoking ban.
MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman, whose company operates 10 of the Strip’s largest resorts comprising 36,425 guest rooms, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that such a ban might not be popular with some guests.
“I think when you reach into a private area, such as hotel rooms, you are starting down a very slippery slope,” he said.
The failed challenge to the ballot measure was filed by Herbst Gaming, Golden Gaming, United Coin, the Bar and Tavern Owners Association and the Petroleum and Convenience Store Owners Association. The Nevada Resort Association and the Nevada Restaurant Association filed as friends of the court in support of the petition.
“That was a big win for us,” Hackett said of Maddox’s decision. “It proved the lawsuit was baseless and simply an attempt on the plaintiffs’ part to deny Nevadans the right to vote on a measure many support. Their appeal is just a continuation of this.”
If it remains on the ballot, the measure will have competition from another question regulating smoking. A business-backed initiative, the Responsibly Protect Nevadans from Second-Hand Smoke Act, calls for a less restrictive ban on smoking, focusing on areas of bars and restaurants where children are allowed.
Resorts challenge smoking ban ruling
Resort operators and other opponents of the anti-smoking Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act have filed a notice they are appealing to remove the proposed statute from the November ballot.
The act would ban smoking in most public areas including hotel and motel rooms, all restaurants and businesses, including bars that are attached to restaurants. Smoking would still be allowed in casino areas where minors are prohibited and in “stand alone” bars and taverns.
Carson District Judge Bill Maddox, in a 19-page opinion issued June 5, rejected arguments the proposal was vague and unconstitutional. He went one step further than proponents had asked him to, ruling that the smoking ban would also apply to hotel and motel rooms. Advocates said they didn’t intend that restriction when writing the proposal.
The official notice of appeal was filed July 5 in the Nevada Supreme Court.
The anti-smoking act was authored by the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition.
Michael Hackett, a spokesman for the petition’s advocates, said they won’t cross-appeal to change the hotel-motel portion of the ruling, but will defend against the attempt to get the Supreme Court to remove the issue from the ballot.
Before the case can proceed, the court will first ask the parties in the case whether they can resolve any of their disagreements in a settlement conference. If not, briefs and a hearing schedule will be set.
The secretary of state’s office and county election officials, however, need to know whether the question goes on the ballot by the first Monday in August – this year, Aug. 7.
Maddox rejected more than a dozen procedural, constitutional and statutory challenges designed to keep the issue off the ballot. He said statutes, whether legislative or enacted by initiative, “are cloaked in the presumption of constitutionality.”
The gaming, restaurant and bar industries have put their own, much less restrictive, proposal on the ballot.
Under Nevada law, if both receive majority approval, the one receiving the most votes will become law.
• Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.
Smoking Question: Worries Over Ban Surface
7 June 2006
By Howard Stutz And Ed Vogel
Las Vegas Gaming Wire
By Howard Stutz And Ed Vogel
Las Vegas Gaming Wire
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Sitting at a Red Rock Resort video poker machine Tuesday afternoon, Deloss Daniels puffed away on his cigar while hoping to hit an elusive royal flush.
When he visits a restaurant, either at Red Rock or anywhere else in Summerlin, the cigar stays in its case.
But the six-year Las Vegas resident does not believe he should be in the position to dictate to any Las Vegas visitor where they can and cannot smoke, especially when it comes to one of the valley’s 131,762 guest rooms.
“I don’t mind if half the rooms or three-quarters of the rooms are nonsmoking, but I don’t really want to be telling anyone else what to do,” Daniels said.
Nevada voters could be asked in November whether they want to ban smoking in hotel and motel rooms, restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores and bars.
A separate business-backed initiative will allow voters to choose a less restrictive ban on smoking, including in areas of bars and restaurants where children are allowed.
Neither of the ballot questions would outlaw smoking on a casino floor.
The more restrictive measure, being proposed by Nevadans for Tobacco-Free Kids, would make Nevada the first state in the country to prohibit smoking in all hotel and motel rooms, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights said.
Nevada now ranks as the worst state in the nation for protecting nonsmokers, said Bronson Frick, the organization’s associate director. With passage of the ballot question, Nevada would be among the best states for nonsmokers rights, he said.
Most of the big casino companies are taking a wait-and-see approach to the matter.
“We have no formal position on either initiative. We’ll let the voters decide which measure they prefer,” said Lesley Pittman, Station Casinos’ vice president of government relations.
Banning smoking in hotel rooms would give the operators of Red Rock Resort some cause for concern.
“That would be a problem for us,” Pittman said. The company, which operates 3,661 hotel rooms in Southern Nevada, offers guests the choice of smoking or nonsmoking rooms.
MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman, whose company operates 10 of the Strip’s largest resorts comprising 36,425 guest rooms, said hotel floors at each property are designated as nonsmoking floors. He could not give a percentage for the number of nonsmoking rooms the company operates because it varies by property.
Banning smoking in hotel rooms would be a concern to the gaming industry giant.
“I think when you reach into a private area, such as hotel rooms, you are starting down a very slippery slope,” Feldman said. “The public will decide what it clearly wants, but it seems (banning smoking in guest rooms) is not something that would be very popular.”
Feldman said MGM Mirage has increased the number of nonsmoking rooms it offers over the past decade. Several restaurants are nonsmoking while others provide nonsmoking sections. Designated areas of the casino floors are set aside for nonsmoking patrons.
Most of the major poker rooms in Las Vegas are now smoke-free.
Feldman said banning smoking in hotel rooms might send the wrong message.
“Las Vegas is a place about letting your hair down and being yourself in whatever form,” he said.
Michael Hackett, campaign manager for Nevadans for Tobacco-Free Kids, said it was not his group’s intention to include hotel and motel rooms in the ban.
But in reviewing language in the ballot question, District Judge Bill Maddox determined that a hotel or a motel is a place of business, not a private residence, and the smoking ban should apply to their rooms.
On Monday, Maddox rejected a request from gaming companies, hotels and convenience stores to remove the Nevadans for Tobacco-Free Kids’ petition from the November ballot.
Sponsors of the tough anti-smoking ballot question said Tuesday they have not decided whether to appeal the decision to allow Nevada voters to decide whether to ban smoking in all hotel and motel rooms.
“It was not what we expected, but it is not going to impair our ability to go forward,” Hackett said. “The ruling was a big victory for us.”
Lee Haney, a spokeswoman for gaming companies, motels and hotels, convenience stores and other businesses that wanted Maddox to throw out the ballot question, said her organizations will decide within two weeks whether to appeal the decision.
But she added the ruling placing hotel and motel rooms within the smoking ban will lead voters to defeat the ballot question.
“We think people realize the economic detriment that it would cause,” Haney said.
Keith Schwer, director for the center of business and economic at research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agreed that the gaming industry could incur some added costs if smoking were banned in hotel rooms.
Studies have not been undertaken on the matter, but Schwer surmised that any customers who avoid Las Vegas because of a ban on smoking in hotel rooms would have to be replaced by nonsmoking guests.
“You’re going to have spend some money to market that room to someone else and get it filled, thus, avoiding any reduction in revenue,” Schwer said. “So, it seems the answer is that if you lose people because smoking is banned, it will cost you more to replace them.”
Last year, the off-Strip Westin banned smoking in its public areas, including hotel rooms, the lobby, meeting areas and restaurants. Several gaming tables near the lobby went smoke-free. The move was part of a ban on smoking at more than 70 Westin hotels and resorts in North America.
David Schwartz, who coordinates UNLV’s gaming studies research center, said nonsmoking hotel rooms might be a national trend that will be hard to halt.
He said he found an historical similarity from the late 1960s when smoking was banned in movie theaters. People, at the time, thought the move would make movie theaters obsolete.
“More and more, smoking is being outlawed indoors,” Schwartz said.
Herbst Gaming — a supplier of slot machines to convenience stores, bars, supermarkets and taverns — is part of the coalition backing a ballot initiative that is less restrictive. General counsel Sean Higgins said the more stringent proposal would hurt businesses and could hamper a thriving economy.
With his brothers, Higgins operates Three Angry Wives, a tavern in the Boca Park Shopping Center near Summerlin. The restaurant portion is nonsmoking, Higgins said, but smoking is permitted in the bar, lounge and gaming areas.
“Responsible business owners will do the right things for their customers,” Higgins said. “That’s why we think our initiative is a more responsible approach.”
Some casino patrons believe the current laws are just fine.
Gregory Hinds, who owns several homes in Las Vegas but also lives part-time in Oregon, said any smoking ban could affect his decision on where he goes to eat and gamble.
“I don’t think there should be some stringent rules about smoking and drinking in Las Vegas,” Hinds said while playing a video slot machine at Red Rock Resort. “This isn’t the Bay Area, and it isn’t San Diego.”
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spokesman Vince Alberta said the tourism agency was not taking a position on either initiative.
BREITBART.COM – Nev. Study Links Casino Smoke, DNA DamageEven though most casino showrooms no longer allow smoking, Woodbury said the smoke … Study Links Casino Smoke, DNA Damage, May 15 8:23 PM US/Eastern, AP …
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www.crisscross.com/us/news/25996 – 49k – May 16, 2006
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Differences in DNA-damage in non-smoking men and women exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)
July 28, 2005
Toxicology Letters Volume 158, Issue 1
July 28, 2005
Toxicology Letters Volume 158, Issue 1
June 10, 2006
This is a preliminary critique of the news release at .
This is a preliminary critique of the news release at .
concerning genetic damage among casino workers, supposedly caused by tobacco smoke.
Please note the article says a preliminary report on 50 of the workers was published last December in Toxicology Letters. Yet when I reviewed the online index of Toxicology Letters, there are no published reports concerning casino workers, or any other kinds of workers and secondhand smoke. .
.
There was a published report where Pristos, was an author, which was published in last July issue of Toxicology Letters concerning gene damage in casino workers. .
However, contrary to the claim Pristos made in this news release, . that report found no direct corellation between smoke exposure and gene damage. In fact the abstract states ” 8-OHdG-DNA damage was not dose dependant. Other kinds of DNA damage were exposure dependant in males, but not females.
However, contrary to the claim Pristos made in this news release, . that report found no direct corellation between smoke exposure and gene damage. In fact the abstract states ” 8-OHdG-DNA damage was not dose dependant. Other kinds of DNA damage were exposure dependant in males, but not females.
What is even more important is, this July report did not compare the rate of gene damage to any control subjects. That is to say, no nonsmokers from nonsmoking households who work in smoke-free environments were studied to see if they had similiar variations in gene damage. Since everyone has genetic damage, the statement alone that casino workers have gene damage is actually meaningless. It is only if casino workers have statistically significantly more gene damage than smoke-free workers in other occupations, that this report would have meaning, and even then, only if such gene damage was similiar but not necessarily of the same magnitude, to that of smokers. The use of a control group is crucial to draw proper conclusions from this casino workers study.
Of course, I do not yet know if control data will be published if/when this study appears in the Journal of the Amer. Med. Assoc, as was claimed it will in the news article.
– David W. Kuneman
