A group of Atlantic City casino dealers represented by the United Auto Workers union and the anti-smoking group they formed, Casino Employees Against Smoking’s Effects (CEASE), staged a rally last week outside the office of New Jersey state Senator Vince Polistina to urge passage of a total smoking ban for casino floors.
Polistina, who had stood beside dealers at past rallies calling for legislation to end the casino exemption to New Jersey’s 2006 indoor smoking ban, canceled a planned committee vote during December’s special legislative session that would have sent the bill, a total smoking ban, to the Senate floor.
At the time, Polistina said the committee did not have the votes to clear the bill, and that lawmakers wanted time to study a compromise proposed by casino operators that would ban smoking on casino floors but would create so-called “Philip Morris smoking rooms” in which dealer shifts would be voluntary.
That proposal, roundly rejected by CEASE and the union, is the basis of a bill Polistina is planning to introduce in the 2024 session.
“You want to build smoking rooms to be staffed by volunteers,” said Pete Naccarelli, a 27-year Borgata dealer and one of the leaders of CEASE, according to the Press of Atlantic City. “We are going to be ‘voluntold’ to go in.”
Dealers told Polistina that under the compromise bill, casinos would staff the smoking rooms by targeting immigrants and younger employees afraid to refuse, or by denying part-time employees hours if they refuse to work there.
Polistina told the group he still wants to eliminate smoking inside Atlantic City casinos. “I was with you from the start … stood with you at the rallies, stood with you in Trenton,” Polistina said, according to the Press. “I agree with the fact that we should not have smoking in any indoor facility anywhere in the state of New Jersey.
“Knowing we lost a huge segment of the Legislature, particularly the South Jersey Democratic delegation … I was still trying to get to a point where we can eliminate smoking on the casino floor” with the compromise bill.
“You say we lost, but what’s this loser mentality?” Naccarelli asked Polistina. “You’re our representative. We want you to say, ‘We are going to pass this thing. Let’s get it done…
“These are people who put pregnant women and a guy with cancer on a smoking table,” one attendee told the Press. “They do not care. They have no empathy.”
