Fears that barring smokers from gambling when taking a puff have long kept a bizarre exemption to the US’s prohibition on smoking in public indoor spaces in place. Casinos have got away with allowing players to keep on lighting up cigarettes while playing to the detriment of personnel and fellow patrons’ health.
Kansas Bill Gives Hope to Health Advocates for Ending Indoor Smoking Mandate
The debate about the elimination of this practice has been fierce. On the one hand, most casinos have shown jitters to act preemptively, fearing that casino-goers would simply stop showing up. Others have rolled out no-smoking mandates without registering a decline in their revenue.
Kansas may now be looking closer at doing the same en masse, with a new bill – House Bill 2252 – set to amend the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act and ensure that smoking in casinos is prohibited.
What’s more, the amendment will also seek to snuff out electronic cigarettes and marijuana.
Secondhand smoke has become a serious issue across the United States, and groups calling for the end of exemptions have said that there are no economic or health justifications to allow smoking to take place inside casinos, even if the gaming areas letting smokers in have been reduced considerably.
Similar efforts are not only ongoing in Kansas, but also in New Jersey, which has become the poster state of the opposition against the indoor smoking exemption that allows for lighting up on casino floors.
Efforts Ongoing in New Jersey, Iowa and Elsewhere
Casino workers in New Jersey are again pressing for an end to indoor smoking in Atlantic City’s gaming halls, this time asking the New Jersey Supreme Court to rule whether the state constitution guarantees them a right to a safe workplace.
However, not all efforts have yielded the desired results. A separate bill in Iowa fell short. The debate around the issue has been vociferous, involving top legislators from across multiple states, but none have shown willingness to act on the issue. Sen. Tony Bisignano was among the senators to oppose the proposal, but argued that smoking would end “soon.”
