Atlantic City Considers Delaying Casino Smoking Ban
Date Posted : October 7, 2008

The days of smoking inside Atlantic City casinos are numbered but the exact date for the smoking ban is currently being debated again. The ban was to come into effect on the 15th of October but with casino revenues down the date may be pushed back. The Atlantic City Council will be meeting on Wednesday.

Smokers who visit Atlantic City would have already noticed that for the past 18 months smoking has been reduced inside casinos to smaller areas rather than anywhere. The current laws require that 75% of casino floors are smoke free. This is of course great news if you are a non smoker.

If you do smoke you will likely find that the casinos start to open special smoking lounges much like you find in International airports - of course the casino smoking lounges will be much more comfortable.

Opinion is divided on the decision to consider delaying the ban. On one hand you have the casino owners who are very happy as they do not want to see any further declines in revenues in the current economic environment.

On the other hand the majority of casino floor staff are said to be disappointed with the decision as naturally they would prefer to work in a smoke free casino. There is a large number of these workers expected at the council meeting to try to persuade the council to stick with the October 15th deadline.

Obviously on the side of the casinos, Donald Trump had this to say about the ban, "The smoking ban will take tens of millions of dollars of taxes away, will take tens of millions of dollars of aid away to senior citizens, it's going to be a disaster".

This is not the first time we have seen this issue as the same two sides battled when casinos in Australia such as Star City in Sydney and Crown Casino in Melbourne also banned smoking. One thing is for sure - eventually players will get used to the fact that they can no longer smoke while gambling. Clearly more casinos will be taking this no smoking stance in the future.