Atlantic City Smoking Ban Once Again on Table

Andrew Nagy
Posted: October 20, 2009

Atlantic City officials are again considering a total smoking ban for the city's casinos, a year after promising to revisit the issue.

Last October, the Atlantic City Council passed a smoking ban that eliminated smoking entirely in casinos, only to overturn the law 12 days after it went into effect when casinos reported a 19.5 percent drop in revenue.

The city then reverted to the previous regulation that restricts casino smoking to 25 percent of the floor, and this remains the current law.

Council members were evenly divided on the smoking ban—the final vote to scrap the measure was 5-4— so they decided to wait a year to reconsider the issue.

During that year, the tough economy has also taken a toll on the city's casinos. The latest New Jersey Casino Control Commission report shows casino revenue for the first nine months of the year is down 14.2 percent compared to same time period last year.

Casinos are also employing less people, as more than 3,700 jobs have been eliminated in the past year. Bob McDevitt, president of the city's largest casino union, UNITE-HERE, expressed that casino employees want the ban to be delayed again.

"My membership clearly, without any ambiguity at all, is petrified of a 100 percent smoking ban," McDevitt told the Press of Atlantic City.

It is unclear when exactly the council plans to hold a new vote, but it is expected to be sometime in the coming weeks.

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