Floor maps posted on the walls of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort showed smoking was prohibited in the physical space occupied by gaming tables and slot machines, but allowed in the area immediately around them, including the seats.
Within a day of a Press of Atlantic City reporter questioning a Trump executive about the smoking sections and pressure applied by the city and state, the casinos reverted to old floor plans that had larger nonsmoking areas.
The city’s partial smoking ban for casinos — applauded by some but viewed as a handicap to doing business by others — turned 4 years old this month. But enforcement of the rules since 2007 has been virtually non-existent. A Press review of city records and observation of floor activity in all 11 casinos show there is virtually no enforcement of the ban by city officials and that casino nonsmoking section boundaries are often ignored. The Press observed patrons smoking in nonsmoking sections in all but three gaming halls: Borgata, Bally’s and Hilton.
In four years, only one smoking ordinance violation on a casino floor has been issued by the city’s Department of Health and Human Services.
“It’s a nightmare for the Health Department,” Ron Cash, the department’s director, said of enforcing the city law. “We’re not surprised by the minimal number of violations. The reality is we don’t have enough inspectors. ... We don’t have the staffing or the resources.”
“The only way we can really do this is to rely on the casino industry to enforce it themselves.”
City code requires casinos to prohibit smoking “on all employee-staffed portions of the casino floor; however, casino licensee operators are permitted to construct nonstaffed, separately exhausted, enclosed smoking lounges on no more than 25 percent of the gaming floor,” the law reads.
There is strong incentive for Atlantic City casinos to allow smoking. The local industry faces growing competition in neighboring states and other locales across the nation. Smoking is allowed on casino floors in Nevada and Mississippi, and Pennsylvania allows it in half a casino’s gaming space. Smoking is prohibited in all parts of casino properties in Delaware, New York and Maryland, according to the American Gaming Association.
A smoking ban can be bad for business: When Colorado and Illinois completely banned smoking in casinos in 2008, gaming revenue fell by double-digit percentages.
The city’s Department of Health and Human Services continues to endorse a full ban and has suggested other changes to the law to make it more threatening. Cash said he would like to increase smoking violation fines. City officials can charge a smoker or an establishment with fines ranging from $25 to $250. Cash said he hopes to see them boosted to the fines outlined in state law, which range from $250 to $1,000.
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1 comment:
Implementing this kind of rule is really hard since it has many effects in the business of Atlantic City casino hotels. I think they should provide a strategic way of implementing this, a way that business is not affected.
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