Time for a non-smoking casino?

Those images will entirely cover the top half of both the front and back of packs sold in the US. Hard to imagine a more effective, practical warning.

I don't know the history of how long they've been on there nor their effectiveness is deterring smoking but similar pictoral warnings have been on cigarette packs in Canada for the past 10 years that I can recall.

Dan

When I open a pack of cigarettes, it goes immediately into a cigarette case, and I never see it again until I "scrunch" it up and throw the empty pack in the trash. I don't look at the package, in other words. This will not affect me in the least.

If it keeps kids from starting to smoke, fine.

All of the Casino's up here in Ontario are non smoking.

Casino Rama was packed when we were up there on Saturday.

its very simple, if all casinos became nonsmoking then the only change would be better smelling and cleaner casinos. They made all the restaurants nonsmoking here and all the restaurants screamed how it would kill buisness, but instead they keep on going and more keep opening up.

I think it depends on whether or not there's competition within a reasonable distance. IL casinos are a good example. They went non smoking about 2 years ago (locals there can provide more specific info) and where it was logistically expedient and/or reasonable, smokers simply took their business across the border into NW IN. As such, the IL legislature recently voted to reverse the non-smoking ban.

I'm not aware of any data where making all restaurants within a given jurisdiction helped or hindered the owners bottom line. It may in fact be market dependent as well.

One thing I don't understand and this is coming from a non-smoker....

I buy a restaurant or bar. I do this at a time when smoking indoors in my establishment was deemed legal. Politicians decide (perhaps with constituent pressure) to endorse a non-smoking ban. Where is this in any way reasonable? I have a private establishment. I decide that I want to open it to anyone/everyone but smoking is allowed. If a consumer wants to opt for or endure a smoking environment while eating, isn't that their perrogative?

I'm not attempting to open up a discussion on the pros and cons of smoking and this once again moves away from the questions rasied by the OP. I nonetheless feel that this is oppressive to the civil rights of the business owner. No one is forcing employees to work there nor customers to patronize the establishment if they're not smoking tolerant. I just think it's unreasonable to change the law AFTER the owner opened a restaurant/bar with the full knowledge and appreciation that he could allow smoking.

If this is taking too much of a twist into a conversation about "smoking", feel free to delete it. It's not my intention to start a war about what I know is a very sensitive subject. Just try to look impartially at the issue of civil liberties and not on the dangers of smoking and draw your conclusions accordingly.

Dan

There are a few casinos in LV that have non-smoking sections. Some, like RR and GVR, offer full-pay vp in their non-smoking sections. My impression (which is admittedly based upon a very small sample) is that there are about the same number of people per machine in the non-smoking sections as there are in the rest of the casino.

I know that sometimes people smoke in the non-smoking sections and that smoke sometimes drifts over from adjacent areas. But, on the whole, the non-smoking sections are far less smokey than the rest of the casino.

On the assumption (and again this may be a bit of a stretch) that at least some of the people in the non-smoking section will play longer in a less smokey environment, it appears that there is a definite market for non-smoking sections and that having a non-smoking section may actually increase a casino's bottom line.

However, if 25% of the population smokes (or whatever the number is), it would be economic suicide to have a non-smoking casino in a city full of casinos that permit smoking.

"Some, like RR and GVR, offer full-pay vp in their non-smoking sections."

Aliante does, too.

I certainly think LV could support a nonsmoking casino. I don't think the Bellagio would go under if it was nonsmoking but I think plenty of others would. I don't quite grasp the "only stupid people smoke" arguement though. I know nonsmokers that can't read. Could we make the arguement that people who gamble are stupid? Why would anyone put hard earned money into a slot machine, VP machine or table? They have to be stupid.

Let's rank stupidity from dumbest to brightest.

People who smoke and play slots
People who play slots
People who smoke and play VP
People who play VP
People who smoke and count cards
People who count cards
People who smoke and don't gamble
People who don't gamble

Or maybe it's still a free country and businesses can still decide the rules for their establishments and people can still choose whether or not to frequent the establishments.

With restrictions everywhere else. why not have smoke-free casinos. I wish for the day that all casinos are smoke-free. Have one casino for smokers only. Let them choke on their own pollution of smoke.