A smoke-free consultant is taking the Shreveport, La., City Council to task for trying to relieve casinos from an upcoming smoking ban.
Randy Hayden, a consultant with Americans for Non-Smokers Rights, told Casino.org he knew thither would live an elbow grease to “delay, amend, or repeal” the casino smoking ban. Hayden is chair of Creative Communications in Baton Rouge. The measure, approved shoemaker's last year, is readiness to lead off Aug. 1. Shreveport is inward northwest Louisiana.
When the baccy industry and casino industry capture inward cahoots, you tin can bet somebody is going to suffer,” Hayden said. “In this case, it’s the employees, patrons, and vendors of facilities that were promised pick workplaces to a greater extent than a twelvemonth ago.”
Councilman James Flurry late introduced an amendment to relieve casinos from the upcoming smoking ban. The go forth could follow addressed at the council’s next scheduled encounter July 13.
Flurry, who previously voted inwards favour of the ban, said a banning could drive gamblers forth and head to task losses at the city’s deuce riverboat casinos, according to KEEL News Radio.
Hayden told Casino.org play halls don’t turn a loss money because of smoke-free laws.
“They lose money because of high-risk direction and literally dozens of other factors, such as heights taxes and regulatory costs,” Hayden said. “If the City Council is so concerned about cassino income, wherefore doesn’t it lower its local embarkment fees?”
Ban Delayed
In June 2020, the Shreveport City Council passed the Smoke Free Air Act, banning smoking inwards bars, casinos, and gaming facilities. The ordinance was to get hold of set up in Aug 2020.
However, the City County delayed the ban for casinos until Aug. 1, 2021. Some officials were worried nearly job losses during the coronavirus pandemic if gamblers who smoke use up their money elsewhere. Casinos and bars crosswise the Red River inwards Bossier City fare not forbidding smoking.
“We can utter well-nigh used fume all twenty-four hour period long in these casinos and what it does to the employees. But if those employees don’t make a job, it’s sledding to live worse,” Councilman Grayson Boucher said shoemaker's last year,
Hayden said the ordinance that the council sanctioned last-place year doesn’t “ban” smoking at gambling casino sites.
“We are simply asking smokers to stair outside, just the likes of they get along inwards every other business sector in the city,” the consultant said. “I don’t understand wherefore the casinos are so willing to poison their possess employees and to the highest degree of their customers simply to stay fresh a smoking car inward his or her seat?”
‘Continued Edgar Guest Requests’
Casinos inward other states also feature banned smoking. In Las Vegas, smoking bans have been implemented at some casinos on the Strip.
In the freshly opened Resorts World, smoking is banned everyplace except the cassino floor. The $4.3 billion resort is on the due west side of meat of the Strip where the now-demolished Stardust at one time stood.
Also on the Strip, Park MGM banned smoking shoemaker's last pin end-to-end the hotel-casino. This resulted from “continued guest requests,” according to Anton Nikodemus, an MGM Resorts executive. NoMad Las Vegas, a sumptuousness “hotel-within-a-hotel” at Park MGM, also has prohibited smoking.
The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas has prohibited smoking from some public spaces, but not the gaming floor. The Cosmopolitan is on the west face of the Strip, northward of Mungo Park MGM.
In New Jersey, a pandemic-related indoor smoking ban expires July 4, allowing cassino patrons to lite up. Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has said he would be clear to signing statute law to banning smoking inside casinos.
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