{"id":32885,"date":"2023-08-29T06:38:18","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T14:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=32885"},"modified":"2023-09-05T06:32:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T14:32:21","slug":"in-case-you-missed-it-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/in-case-you-missed-it-4\/","title":{"rendered":"In case you missed it …"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Those of you who still follow us on Twitter<\/strong>, er, X<\/strong> may recall that we promised to share the next Casino Life<\/em> Editor’s Note with you. Since it’s virtually the only Casino Life<\/em> content that’s not hyperlinked to the Web, here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s noxious. It\u2019s antisocial. And it\u2019s unhealthy. It\u2019s cigar and cigarette smoke in casinos. And it\u2019s got to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I can\u2019t speak for Europe<\/strong> and Asia<\/strong>, here in America<\/strong> less than 13 percent of the population smokes. Although these people are in a very small minority of consumers, the casino industry bends over for them as though they were the only players who mattered. Because of them you have to choke on noxious tobacco fumes every time you cross a casino floor. Nor can you \u2018vote with your feet\u2019 because neither the casino across the street nor the one in the next town caters to non-smokers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In the U.S., seemingly the only way to get smoke off a casino floor is for gambling to be legalized in a state that already bans smoking in public places. Even that is no guarantee. In a recent and disgraceful backslide, the city council of Shreveport<\/strong>, Louisiana<\/strong>, decided to reinstate smoking on the city\u2019s casino floors. This was done at the apparent importuning of Boyd Gaming<\/strong> and Bally\u2019s Corp<\/strong>., two companies with a vested interest in beclouding the air, all the better to compete with smoking-rampant gambling halls in nearby Bossier City<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the City Council went through the motions of taking public testimony, the final vote did not reflect the citizen feedback they received. Their constituents spoke overwhelmingly against bringing smoking back to 75 percent of city casino floors. Completing the profile in cowardice, the mayor let the supine vote go into law without his signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As veteran casino executive Richard Schuetz<\/strong> acidly noted, \u201cUnderstanding that there is a high comorbidity between smoking and problem gambling, the city council \u2026 has clearly taken the position that while smoking damages the health of guests and employees, keeping our problem gamblers happy is important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar observations might be made of Rhode Island<\/strong>, where Bally-friendly legislators have wailed that the state might lose one-third of its casino revenue were smoking to be banned. Think about it. Thirteen percent of customers accounting for 33 percent of winnings? We\u2019d better look into this comorbidity issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is the lack of spine confined to marginal markets. Although a majority of the New Jersey<\/strong> Legislature favors\u2014and cosponsors\u2014bills to extirpate smoking from Atlantic City<\/strong>, it lacks the political will to bring the issue to a vote. That\u2019s how cowed they are by casinos. Meanwhile, dealers and others must cough and bear it as the carcinogenic cost of making a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we must continue to observe such poisonous fictions as Las Vegas<\/strong>\u2019 \u201csmoke-free corridors\u201d\u2014as though clouds of tar and nicotine observe arbitrary borders drawn in thin air. It\u2019s Theatre of the Absurd on which the curtain should have fallen years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you who still follow us on Twitter, er, X may recall that we promised to share the next Casino Life Editor’s Note with you. Since it’s virtually the only Casino Life content that’s not hyperlinked to the Web, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,293,60,283,84,248,33,141,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32886,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32885\/revisions\/32886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}