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Casino floors to become less smoky
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, (609) 272-7258
Published: Monday, September 17, 2007
ATLANTIC CITY - Florence Guess proudly proclaimed that she is 84 years old and has never smoked a day in her life.
A resident of Philadelphia, Guess visits Atlantic City to gamble at the casinos but is weary of the cigarette smoke that occasionally drifts her way.
"I don't like it," she said while seated at a slot machine at the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort. "I don't want smokers anywhere near me."
Guess is about to get her way. The Hilton has plans to build enclosed rooms on its casino floor that will allow smokers to puff away while playing the slot machines or gaming tables. Other parts of the casino floor will be strictly nonsmoking.
Donald Trump angrily calls the smoking rooms "choking boxes." Anti-smoking advocates denounce them as "gas chambers" or "death traps." Despite the ominous names and intense criticism by smoking proponents and opponents alike, smoking rooms will be coming to Atlantic City. They are expected to be ready by spring.
All 11 of Atlantic City's gaming halls have plans for smoking rooms on the casino floor or special smoking lounges that will have no gambling. No casinos plan to go completely smoke-free, although they have that option.
The smoking rooms are the second part of the city's casino smoking law that took effect April 15. Smoking is banned on 75 percent of the casino floors. Casinos must build enclosed smoking rooms if they allow smoking in the remaining 25 percent of the gaming space. Or they may set aside nongaming smoking lounges.
Hilton and sister property Resorts Atlantic City are planning to build both casino smoking rooms and nongaming smoking lounges. Hilton will shell out $3.5 million and Resorts $3 million for the smoking sections.
Anthony Rodio, regional president of the Hilton and Resorts, detests the idea of having to spend millions to build what he says will be ugly smoking enclosures that may disrupt the normal flow of traffic on the casino floors.
"My hope is that City Council will re-evaluate the walls," said Rodio, calling on government leaders to repeal the part of the partial smoking ban that requires the smoking rooms.
Raising similar complaints, Trump wrote to city officials last month asking them to rescind the partial smoking ban or, at the very least, to dump the requirement for smoking rooms.
Trump groaned in an Aug. 15 letter that the smoking rooms will look "absolutely terrible." Moreover, he said, "They are already being called smoke boxes or choking boxes. More importantly, the enclosures are likely to make our smoking patrons feel contained and confined and drive even more gaming business away."
City officials, though, have shown no willingness to budge. Two council members, Bruce Ward and Gene Robinson, criticized Trump for trying to blame the city for the gaming industry's financial troubles. City Council President William Marsh stressed that he continues to support a smoking ban on 75 percent of the casino floor.
Smokers say they are already feeling boxed in. The thought of being confined to walled-in smoking rooms - each equipped with separate ventilation systems to prevent smoke from drifting into nonsmoking sections of the casino - made them angry.
"I'm claustrophobic, so I'm not comfortable with it," Pat House, 50, of Little Egg Harbor Township, said as she puffed on a cigarette while playing a slot machine at the Hilton.
"That's very bad. It's just not fair," said Bogumila Witek, 65, a pack-a-day smoker from Rahway. "This will prevent us from doing what we have a right to do - enjoying our cigarettes whenever we want to smoke."
Trump, Rodio and other gaming operators have blamed the partial smoking ban, along with extra competition from Pennsylvania and New York's new slot parlors, for driving down Atlantic City's casino revenue this year by 4 percent. Gross operating profits at the casinos sank by nearly 18 percent in the second quarter.
Rodio argued that such a large drop in operating profits endangers casino jobs, investment and the millions of dollars in tax money the gaming industry pays into state programs every year.
"I think we're viewed by politicians and the state at large as a bottomless pit. If the same situation were to occur in Las Vegas, I don't think you would see the same type of apathy," Rodio said of New Jersey's supposedly ho-hum reaction to falling casino revenue.
Karen Blumenfeld, an attorney and policy director for the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, which has pushed for a total casino smoking ban, disputed Rodio's assertion that the smoking restrictions are hurting business.
Blumenfeld said racetrack slot parlors in Delaware and New York have prospered since smoking bans were imposed there, so Atlantic City should be able to follow their lead.
"It's not clear to me how they can claim the partial smoking ban is having a financial impact," she said.
Rodio produced revenue comparisons for the Hilton and Resorts that he said clearly show a decline in slot revenue at both properties since the partial smoking ban went into effect in April. Since then, the smoking ban has cost the Hilton $3.5 million in slot revenue and Resorts $2.4 million, he said.
Now with casinos making preparations for the new smoking rooms, Rodio fears that business may drop even more. At the same time, there is the threat that the city or state may later impose a total smoking ban, which would render the smoking rooms useless and cost the casinos millions of dollars in wasted construction, he noted.
"We're in the gambling business, and this is definitely a gamble," he said.
To e-mail Donald Wittkowski at The Press:
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