Key points:
- Casino workers in Atlantic City demonstrate against the city’s smoke-free exemption
- Workers remain concerned about the long-term health impacts of secondhand smoke
Casino workers in Atlantic City continue to push for smoke-free gambling halls in the city by demonstrating outside of a local hotel at which New Jersey Governer Phil Murphy was set to speak.
The latest chapter in a four-year dispute has seen casino workers take to the streets to demonstrate against indoor smoking at Atlantic City (AC) casinos.
In April, the New Jersey Senate Health Committee approved a bill that would ban smoking in AC casinos. Despite this, a New Jersey judge ruled in favor of allowing smoking to continue in gambling halls in September.
Currently, the state of New Jersey yields strict clean air laws that prohibit indoor smoking; however, Atlantic City currently possesses an exemption from the law.
Now, workers are expressing concerns about life-threatening diseases related to secondhand smoke, claiming that their co-workers are becoming ill.
Good to know: In 2022, Atlantic Prevention Resources, a public health agency, resigned from the AC Chamber following pushback on the smoking ban proposal
The impetus to overturn the bill has fallen on New Jersey state Governer Phil Murphy, who had previously said he would sign a bill to revoke the exemption but has since done little to push for legislative change.
In September, Governer Murphy appeared on the local News 12 New Jersey show, stating the following, “I have an enormous amount of sympathy with them; they’re somehow blaming this on me.
"I just want to repeat what I have been saying for about five years: If a bill comes to my desk that bans smoking in casinos in Atlantic City, I will sign it. Period. I am not equivocating, and I have not equivocated about that. The way to solve this is through legislation.”
