Smoking Ban in Atlantic City Casinos Postponed

Posted By Jeremy Hopkins | Sunday, December 31, 2006 - 13:25
Categories: Travel & Casinos | Law

In a surprise a move, Atlantic City's city council decided on Friday to postpone the implementation of a casino smoking ban until April 15.

Councilman G. Bruce Ward, who supports the ban, said the council postponed the decision in order to be considerate and to try and give the casino industry more time to prepare new marketing strategies and to reevaluate their business before the ban comes into effect.

A new, amended proposal will be voted on January 24 and is expected to pass and it would go into effect April 15. The previous measure would have taken effect in a month.

The Legislature exempted the gaming floors from the statewide ban enacted last spring. But the New Jersey Indoor Clean Air Act permitted local municipalities to add more restrictive laws.

The casino industry claims that the ban will cause a 20 percent fall in revenue, while the city wants to look after the health of the casino players. A study at the University of Nevada found that less than 22 percent of gamblers in Las Vegas casinos smoke.

The Casino Association of New Jersey stated that the ban would cause to 3,400 casino workers to lose their jobs and to a two-year loss of $93 million in taxes for the state. The future smoking ban will also increase competition with Pennsylvania and New York casinos that allow smoking and will have a considerable advantage over the smoke-free Atlantic City casinos.