Union asks judge to dismiss anti-smoking lawsuit targeting Atlantic City casinos
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ — Atlantic City’s main casino union asked a judge Monday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by another union seeking to ban smoking in the city’s nine casinos.
Local 54 of the Unite Here union said in a filing in state Superior Court that a third of the 10,000 workers it represents would be at risk of losing their jobs and the means to support their families if smoking is banned.
Currently, smoking is allowed on 25% of the casino floor. But those areas are not contiguous, and the practical effect is that passive smoking is present in varying degrees throughout the casino floor.
A lawsuit filed earlier this month by the United Auto Workers, which represents dealers at Bally’s, Caesars and Tropicana casinos, seeks to overturn New Jersey’s indoor smoking law, which bans it in virtually every workplace. except in casinos.
Nancy Erika Smith, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, responded in disbelief to Local 54’s request.
“I have never seen a union fight against the health and safety of their members, not once,” she said. “Fortunately, Unite’s economic arguments, while false, have absolutely no relevance to the constitutional issue at hand.”
Donna DeCaprio is president of Local 54, which represents hotel workers, beverage servers, baggage handlers, public area cleaners and other employees at the nine casinos.
“We support the health and safety of our members and believe improvements need to be made to the current work environment,” she said Monday. “A balance must be struck that both protects workers’ health and sustains good jobs.”
DeCaprio said a total smoking ban would be “catastrophic” for Atlantic City, adding that between 50 and 72% of all gambling revenue won by personal gamblers comes from smoking sections.
The union endorses compromise legislation introduced earlier this year that would maintain the current 25% smoking limit of the casino floor.
But it would allow smoking in unenclosed areas on the casino floor where slot machines are located and designated as smoking areas, more than 15 feet away from table games staffed by live dealers. It would also allow casinos to offer smoking in enclosed, separately ventilated smoking areas, provided that no employee is allowed to work in such an area against their will.
Whether or not to ban smoking is one of the most controversial issues, not only in Atlantic City casinos, but in other states where employees have raised concerns about secondhand smoke. They are running similar campaigns in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Virginia.
“A total smoking ban would put thousands of jobs at risk, jeopardizing the wages, health and welfare benefits, and retirement benefits of Local 54 members and their families,” the union wrote in its lawsuit.
It noted that in 2008, when the Atlantic City City Council imposed a short-lived total smoking ban, casino revenues fell 19.8% within the first week, leading to the implementation of the current 25% smoking area on casino floors.
Local 54 also noted that nearby casinos in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut allow smoking and could take a significant portion of Atlantic City’s revenue if smoking were to end.
It predicted that 3,000 casino jobs in Atlantic City would be lost in such a scenario.
Workers pushing for a smoking ban, including many table game dealers, reject these projections, saying that going smoke-free would actually attract enough customers to more than offset the loss of smokers going elsewhere.
Nicole Vitola, a Borgata dealer and one of the leaders of the anti-smoking campaign, accused Local 54 of being the same as casino management.
“Instead of fighting for the health and safety of workers, Local 54 is fighting in court to allow casinos to continue poisoning their members with toxic secondhand smoke,” she said.
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