...In response to lobbying from the gaming industry, City Council voted Monday to lift the smoking ban, starting Nov. 16, for at least a year to give the casinos more time to recover from the economic crisis. Casinos had feared a mass exodus of smokers to Pennsylvania, Connecticut and other casino markets that have less stringent smoking restrictions or none at all...

rest of article here

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/1...ry/301906.html

I always found it interesting that most of the people I know who go to vegas complain that that casinos are too smokey and they don't like that. Then I went to the Windsor/Detroit area...Windsor went smoke free including the casino and the casino was completely empty. A few hours later I went to the Greektown casino in Detroit where smoking is alive and well and the place was packed. Since there is a country border between them I can't draw too many actual conclusions, but I did find it interesting.

I find it odd that Vegas doesn't at least have a few non-smoking gaming floors - there has to be a market for it, and the bigger casions have enough separate gaming areas to make at least one non-smoking.

That way demand will sort itself out, and everyone can be happy (well, everybody except those who want to tell other people what to do).

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

And except for the casino dealers, cocktail waitresses, and other employees, who face a Hobson's choice of either quitting their jobs, or accepting an increased risk of developing lung cancer due to second-hand smoke.

Not just in Windsor, Ontario, did the casinos lose business because of the smoke free rule coming into effect. When Ontario went to an all smoke free rule, the immediate drop in casino business was very evident. The other two larger casinos began to lay off employees and kept many tables closed. For a while, Casino Rama, 75 miles north of Toronto, kept to a half smoking, half non smoking setutp, as it was on Indian land, and they were not forced to go all non smoking. In time, though, they also adopted a completely non smoking policy as had the two casinos in Niagara Falls. Both have smoking areas outside of the casino, with heated areas for winter (which don't really protect us from the cold wintry winds), but I'm sure they realize that by not having smokers at the tables or slots for twenty or thirty minutes (and having the tables' seats reserved for those players) they are losing the betting time that the players may have otherwise spent on the tables. It's even more apparent in the high stakes rooms, where players are absent from the tables to go outside instead of staying and smoking at their game.
Yet directly across the Niagara River, in Bufallo, N.Y., the Seneca Casino, within view of the casinos in Niagara, has both smoking and non smoking areas, and hasn't lost any business because of that issue.

bj-21.

My observations as a smoker -

The smoking sections of the casino were ridiculous. All the smokers were in those small areas and the smell was awful. It was far less smokey when you could smoke anywhere. Anyone walking by got hit in the face with massive amounts of smoke.

I did see the Showboat with smoking lounges. I didn't go in, but hopefully they had those powerful fans in there.

Every gaming jurisdiction that has, so far as I know, shifted to nonsmoking has taken between a 15 and 20 percent hit in business. It's already too slow here now...as much as I don't like the way the city is run, this was the right thing to do to keep people in their jobs.

Give me a break. If the ENTIRE city goes nonsmoking, then business may fall due to smokers not coming, but if one place only goes non-smoking of course they will loose that business...thats why we need a blanket law.

Where exactly in my post did I say one location? Gaming jurisdiction= all gaming facilities.

Ah, ok then. Still, its a matter of health, for both employees and for patrons.

What is a matter of health is putting all the smokers in one place and having it stink. Previously you could barely tell anyone was smoking in the casino. Now you can smell the smoking area fro 50 feet away.

I totally agree, whilst I've moved out of the regular smoking class (still have a cigar here and there).. I feel like all of the place which put smoking into its own corner almost has some cloud that just festers around the area - even when smoking was not an issue anywhere, the ventilation systems were well enough that most people probably didn't notice it that bad.

I don't necessarily believe that just because its a public place, it needs to be controlled in that way, if you don't like smoke, just don't be by places where people smoke? don't understand why the law is needed.