The fallout from last week’s court decision dismissing a lawsuit to halt indoor smoking in Atlantic City casinos took on a new level Sept. 4, as the director of the Atlantic City local of the United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents Atlantic City table-game dealers, said he will pull the UAW out of the state AFL/CIO over other AFL/CIO unions’ support for indoor smoking.
UAW Region 9 Director Dan Vicente made the announcement during a joint press call staged by Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE), an anti-smoking advocate group composed of Atlantic City Dealers, and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights (ANS), a national advocacy group.
The press call was arranged to voice protest for the Aug. 30 decision by New Jersey Superior Court Judge Patrick Bartels to toss out a lawsuit brought against the state by the UAW, supported by CEASE and ANS, which sought an injunction based on public health dangers to halt the exemption to New Jersey’s 2006 Smoke-Free Air Act that banned all indoor smoking in public areas, but allowed it to continue inside casinos and a few other locations.
The lawsuit argued that workers have a constitutional right to breathe smoke-free air. In his decision dismissing the lawsuit, Bartels held that the plaintiffs’ “reliance on a constitutional right to safety is not well-settled law, and that exceptions in the Smoke-Free Air Act do not intrude upon a person’s safety under the New Jersey Constitution.”
