Union asks judge to dismiss anti-smoking lawsuit targeting Atlantic City casinos

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – Atlantic City’s main casino workers union on Monday asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a different union seeking to ban smoking at the city’s nine casinos.

Local 54 of the Unite Here union said in a state Superior Court filing that a third of the 10,000 workers it represents would risk losing their jobs and the means to support their families if smoking were banned.

Smoking is currently permitted on 25% of the casino floor. But these areas are not contiguous and the practical effect is that secondhand smoke is present to varying degrees throughout the casino.

A lawsuit filed earlier this month by the United Auto Workers, which represents the dealers of Bally’s, Caesars and Tropicana casinos, seeks to overturn New Jersey’s indoor smoking law, which prohibits smoking in virtually all workplaces except in casinos.

Nancy Erika Smith, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, reacted with incredulity to Local 54’s request.

“I have never seen a union fight against the health and safety of its members, not once,” she said. “Fortunately, Unite’s economic arguments, although false, have absolutely no relevance to the constitutional issue at hand.”

Donna DeCaprio is president of Local 54, which represents hotel workers, bartenders, baggage handlers, public area cleaners and other workers at the nine casinos.

“We support the health and safety of our members and believe improvements must be made to the current work environment,” she said Monday. “It is necessary to strike a balance that protects workers’ health and preserves good jobs.”

DeCaprio said a total smoking ban would be “catastrophic” for Atlantic City, adding that between 50 to 72 percent of all gambling revenue earned by in-person gamblers comes from smoking sections.

The union endorses compromise legislation introduced earlier this year that would maintain the current 25% smoking limit on the casino floor.

But it would allow smoking in unenclosed areas of the casino that contain slot machines and are designated as smoking areas, more than 15 feet away from table games with live dealers. It would also allow casinos to offer smoking in separately enclosed and ventilated smoking rooms, with the provision that no worker could be assigned to work in such a room against his or her will.

The smoking ban is one of the most controversial issues, not just at Atlantic City casinos but in other states where workers have expressed 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, putting the wages, health and welfare benefits, and retirement benefits of Local 54 members and their families at risk,” the union wrote in its court filing.

It noted that in 2008, when the Atlantic City City Council imposed a total ban on short-term smoking, casino revenue fell 19.8% in the first week, leading to the enactment of the current 25% smoking area on casino floors. casino.

Local 54 also noted that nearby casinos in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut allow smoking and could take a sizable chunk of Atlantic City’s business if smoking goes away.

It predicted that 3,000 Atlantic City casino jobs would be lost in this scenario.

Workers who advocate smoking bans, including many table game dealers, reject these projections, saying that giving up smoking 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 a casino operator.

“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.

___

Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC