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Friday,
March 02, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Bill
would mandate nonsmoking rules in casinos
By
SEAN WHALEY
DONREY CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- Health officials and anti-smoking groups squared
off with the gaming industry Thursday over a bill that would
mandate creation of nonsmoking sections in casino gambling areas
for employees and customers.
"No worker should be forced to sacrifice his or her health to
maintain a job," said Jeanne Palmer of the Clark County
Health District. "We urge passage of this bill to protect
workers" from environmental tobacco smoke.
Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical
Association, said Nevada is known nationally for poor health
policies on tobacco use. He urged lawmakers to use Assembly Bill
159 by Bob Price, D-North Las Vegas, to craft a policy dealing
with the issue of second-hand tobacco smoke.
"We have the worst numbers in the country on tobacco use by
our residents and tobacco illnesses related to it," he told
the Assembly Judiciary Committee. "There are people in this
room who have suffered from tobacco-related illness.
"So what I would encourage is to look at what Mr. Price has
put on the table and not to dismiss it out of hand," he said.
But Harvey Whittemore, a Reno attorney and lobbyist representing
the Nevada Resort Association and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.,
said adults make the choice to visit a casino where smoking is
allowed.
"Let's be frank. By our own experience, we know that many of
the visitors to our state are smokers," he said. "If
there was this huge public out there that was suggesting that we
want to visit a nonsmoking-only facility, the three or four failed
experiments of designating entire casinos as nonsmoking would have
succeeded."
Whittemore said the casino is interested in the health and welfare
of its employees and visitors. But any suggestion that the
industry is exposing itself to lawsuits by allowing smoking is
contradicted by years of Nevada legal rulings, he said.
The comments about potential liability were made by Jack Lipsman,
a member of the National Federation of Gaming Employees and a
plaintiff in a lawsuit against major tobacco companies in U.S.
District Court regarding second-hand smoke in casinos and its
effects on casino employees.
Lipsman, who testified from Las Vegas, said that without
acknowledging the known dangers of tobacco smoke and doing
something about it, lawsuits from gamblers are inevitable.
"Let's take a step to show we're aware of the problem and
we're going to do something about it," he said.
But Whittemore said Nevada has a history of making people
responsible for their own actions.
"Whether we like it or not, individuals who choose to work in
the gaming industry know the circumstances under which they choose
to work," he said. "They're working in an environment
where we try to satisfy patrons' desires and that includes the
ability to smoke when those patrons choose to do so."
The committee took no action on the measure.
Past efforts to bring nonsmoking rules to casinos have failed.
Under state law, smoking is banned in public buildings, buses,
lobbies, doctors' offices, grocery stores and day care centers.
Restaurants with more than 50 seats must offer nonsmoking
sections. The law also states that a business deriving more than
50 percent of its gross receipts from the sale of alcoholic
beverages or from gaming operations may be designated as a smoking
area in its entirety by the operator of the business.
* * *
This
story is located at:
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Mar-02-Fri-2001/news/15553712.html
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