Workers protest smoking in Atlantic City casinos – NBC New York

With their push to end smoking in Atlantic City casinos failing in the courts and the state legislature, casino employees and advocates for smoke-free arcades demonstrated Thursday outside a hotel where New Jersey’s governor was scheduled to give a speech.

Workers have been pushing for four years to remove an exception to New Jersey’s clean air law that allows smoking in its nine casinos. They say they or their colleagues are getting cancer, heart disease and other illnesses related to secondhand smoke.

Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has said he will sign a bill to end casino smoking as soon as it reaches his desk. But he has invested little political capital in pushing this forward.

His office referred a reporter to a statement he made on a call-in show on News 12 New Jersey in September in which the governor asked why workers blamed him for the impasse.

“I have great compassion for them; “Somehow they blame me,” Murphy said on the show. “I just want to reiterate what I’ve been saying for about five years: If a bill comes to my desk that bans smoking in casinos in Atlantic City, I will sign it. Period. I am not ambiguous, and I have not spoken ambiguously about it. The way to solve this problem is through legislation.”

A bill to end casino smoking has been stalled in the state Legislature for years, without the state’s Democratic leadership allowing a full vote in the Senate and Assembly.

And a lawsuit filed by workers in April is slowly working its way through the legal system; In August, a judge refused to issue an order that would have put an end to smoking in arcades.

The standoff added to the frustration of casino employees who say they want the same workplace protections that virtually every other worker in New Jersey receives.

“It’s terrible when you have three, four, five people blowing smoke in your face,” said Sandy Smolen, a dealer at Borgata Casino for five years and in the industry for 40 years. “You can’t escape it. You’re going home with a cough you didn’t have that morning.”

Elaine Rose, a frequent casino guest, expressed similar sentiments.

“As a gambler, I would go into a casino, play for a few hours and walk out with bad bronchitis,” she said.

Whether to ban smoking is one of the most contentious issues not only in Atlantic City casinos but also in other states where workers have expressed concerns about secondhand smoke. They are running similar campaigns in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Virginia.

The Atlantic City casino industry opposes a ban, fearing the loss of significant revenue and jobs if smokers stop coming to Atlantic City and take their business elsewhere.

But opponents say casinos in several parts of the country have successfully transitioned to smoke-free policies without losing business.

A competing bill that would maintain the current 25 percent limit on smoking in casinos but impose different limits is also in the legislature.

This measure would allow smoking in unfenced areas of the casino floor where slot machines are located and that are designated as smoking areas and are more than 15 feet (4.6 meters) from gaming tables with live dealers. It would also allow casinos to offer smoking in enclosed, separately ventilated smoking rooms, with the proviso that no employee may be required to work in such a room against their will.

Ricky Foster, a supervisor-dealer at Borgata for 21 years, said the frustration among workers is palpable.

“We’re tired of creating Go Fund Me accounts for people’s cancer and heart disease, and they’ve never smoked a day in their lives,” he said.