Star-Ledger Editorial Board Pens Op-Ed in Support of Casino Smoking Ban

The betting odds are sound that the niner casinos inward Atlantic City will offer really smoke-free play in the coming years. New Jersey’s Star-Ledger Editorial Board says that’s a serious thing.

The Star-Ledger is the highest-circulation newspaper publisher inward New Jersey, and as such, its editorial board’s opinions persuade some weight inwards the Trenton capital. Lawmakers are expected to read upwards gambling casino smoking legislation that was mothballed inward the law-makers for to a greater extent than triplet years.

The modish bills, Assembly Bill 2151 and Senate Bill 264, seek to personnel Atlantic City casinos to wee-wee their gaming floors only smoke-free. The state currently allows gaming facilities to designate upwards to 25% of their floors for indoor tobacco use.

Democratic leadership has reportedly delayed the gambling casino smoking legislation until this November’s elections child's play out. All 120 seats are on the ballot. Twenty assembly members are retiring and non seeking reelection, including 13 Democrats. Seven state Senators are also retiring, with quint being Democrats.

Democrats get majority contain of apiece chamber and hope to keep that power next month. Party leaders believe avoiding the controversial casino smoking emerge until after the elections plays into their custody in winning on November 7.

Smoke Knows No Boundaries

AB2151 and SB264 already get plenty back up through cosponsors to go the measures to the other chamber, and theoretically, to Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) desk. Murphy supports forcing the casinos to do away with smoking, but he says he can’t manage it singlehandedly.

The Star-Ledger Editorial Board wrote on Monday that the unexampled Legislature make-up testament potential endorse the anti-casino smoking bills.

A bipartizan measure that will forbiddance smoking inwards New Jersey’s casinos will eventually catch a full vote inwards the Senate during the lame duck legislative session, and we cognise we can talk for every croupier, cashier, cocktail server, custodian, and stone pit clerk when we military issue the followers statement: Hallelujah,” the op-ed read.

Atlantic City casinos were provided an immunity to let tobacco employment on a quarter of their gaming floors through and through New Jersey’s Smoke-Free Air Act, passed in 2006. Some 17 years later, cassino faculty remains topic to harmful secondhand smoke.

The CDC says designated smoking sections relieve present serious air to persons inward supposedly smoke-free sections. The federal health government agency says recent research has found wild levels of Particulate Matter (PM) inward areas of casinos where smoking isn’t allowed.

“The only way of life to protect people from used smoking exposure is to prohibit smoking inward all indoor areas,” concluded Michael Tynan, the CDC Office on Smoking & Health policy team lead.

Long Overdue

New Jersey Sens. Joe Vitale (D-Woodbridge) and Shirley Turner (D-Ewing) are the primary feather sponsors of SB264.

Vitale is optimistic that the government note will overhaul after the election. But he concedes that the delay by his possess party has farther jeopardized health. Vitale says the dangers of secondhand fume feature been known for many years, but lawmakers haven’t acted.

In the clip that has passed, many employees have turn seriously ill, and some feature died as a ensue of the used smoke that pervades their workplace. Sadly, the industry couldn’t upkeep less, and uses claims that incorrectly foretell economical impact. Pathetic, but true,” Vitale said.

The Casino Association of New Jersey, the merchandise aggroup representing the ennead casinos inward Trenton, commissioned a study utmost yr that concluded a smoking forbidding would devastate the saving in Atlantic City. Third-party researchers concluded that gaming revenue would drib past nigh 11%, leading to as many as 2,500 task losses.

“There will follow the predictable whining from manufacture noisemakers most how jobs and profits could live imperiled by the ban, which they say would inspire smokers to top dog out of nation or switching to online gaming,” the Star-Ledger op-ed continued. “The problem is that no cogent evidence exists of such things occurrence inwards the other 22 other states (including New York and Delaware) that get stamped out the practice.

“The most recent work was conducted in July 2022 past Las Vegas-based C3 Gaming, which found that casinos that chose to lead smoke-free in reality raked inwards to a greater extent profits. Conclusion: Most gamblers the likes of to breathe,” the editorial concluded.

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