Pennsylvania Casino Smoking Bill Continues to Linger in State Capitol

Legislation inward Keystone State that seeks to fill up the indoor smoking loophole afforded to casinos and sure other businesses passed a House commission shoemaker's last November. Five months later, the mensurate relieve hasn’t been acted on by the full House of Representatives.

The PA Health Committee signed away on House Bill 1657 on November 15. Known as the Protecting Workers From Secondhand Smoke Act, the statute was authored by country Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny), a longtime counselor-at-law of banning indoor tobacco plant apply to protect employee health.

Frankel’s HB 1657 was ab initio scheduled for brushup in the House chamber this week, but the point was pulled from the schedule after the lawmaker said more time was needed to rebound upward support. Legislative efforts to do away with gambling casino smoking interior Atlantic City casinos seem unlikely anytime soon, though a lawsuit filed this month seeks to prohibit tobacco apply at the nine New Jersey casinos through and through a royal court order.

Pennsylvania lawmakers representing casinos in City of Brotherly Love are concerned that a smoking forbiddance would resultant in some gamblers taking their business an 60 minutes due east to Atlantic Ocean City.

Smoking Stalemate

Pennsylvania’s Clean Indoor Air Act passed inward 2008 provided an exception for casinos that allows brick-and-mortar businesses to apportion upwardly to 25% of their gaming storey infinite for tobacco plant use. Of the 17 casinos in the commonwealth, only if two, Parx Casino inward Bensalem and Parx Casino Shippensburg, don’t have vantage of the smoking allowance.

However, Parx is the richest gambling casino of the bunch. The gambling casino placed just now northward of Philadelphia won $588.2 jillion finally year to easily topper runner-up Wind Creek Bethlehem Ephrathah at $526.3 million. Frankel reasons that Parx’s public presentation shows smoking bans are good — not spoilt — for gaming businesses.

It’s preposterous to reason that smoking bans are big for stage business when Pennsylvania’s most successful gambling casino is voluntarily smoke-free,” Frankel said utmost devolve after his visor cleared the Health Committee.

“A growing organic structure of evidence suggests that smoke-free environments draw in more customers, non fewer,” Frankel added. “Pennsylvanians should not hold to prefer 'tween their jobs and their health. This lawmaking is non just now right for wellness — it’s also unspoilt for business.”

Industry Claims

Commercial gaming lobbyists persist in to tell lawmakers that smoking bans injure business. In Atlantic City, the Casino Association of New Jersey commissioned a consider that concluded a smoking forbidding would reduce annual gaming revenues by as much as 25%, critical income that would lead-in to significant layoffs and peradventure cassino closures.

In Pennsylvania, some analysts believe Parx has get the richest gambling casino because it attracts practically of the nonsmoking crowd. If a smoking forbidding was instituted statewide, that demographic would follow divvied upwards among the Philly casinos, including Live!, Harrah’s, Rivers, and Valley Forge. Smokers would move to Atlantic City and the ban would thus ensue inwards a meshing loss.

According to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, commonwealth casinos employ most 14,800 people at their brick-and-mortar properties. Casino taxes funding an raiment of programs, including belongings assess reductions, agricultural support, the Equus caballus racing industry, biotic community grants, and economic development.

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