Despite smoking ban in NJ casinos, Pa. casinos not budging
Apr 24, 2008
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- What happens in Atlantic City, including a ban on smoking inside casinos, may stay there.
Pennsylvania casinos that have actively opposed a statewide ban on smoking at their properties said Thursday they are not budging from their stance, regardless of a pending law in New Jersey's gambling mecca.
With lobbyists and legislators dug in on both sides of the debate in Pennsylvania, it remained unclear whether a smoking ban in Atlantic City will change minds here.
"I guess it has the potential to," said Rep. Ron Miller, R-York, one of six legislators on a House-Senate conference committee that is tasked with crafting a compromise bill. "The question comes down to whether we can do a total ban in casinos and get the votes in both houses."
Progress on an indoor smoking ban in Pennsylvania has been stuck since July, when the Senate rejected a tougher ban approved by the House.
Bills passed by the House and Senate would ban smoking in most public places and workplaces, including arenas, stores, restaurants and convention halls. But the Senate proposal allows full or partial exceptions for more establishments, including a quarter of casino gambling floors.
The House bill carried no exemption for casinos, and the prime sponsor of that bill, Rep. Mike Gerber, D-Montgomery, said he saw no reason why the House will accept one now.
"My colleagues aren't going for it and now, with Atlantic City doing what it did, they're really not going for it," Gerber said.
Under pressure from casino employees, Atlantic City Council voted 9-0 on Wednesday to close a loophole in a statewide ban on smoking in public buildings that had exempted gambling halls. Gamblers still will be able to light up in unstaffed smoking lounges away from the table games and slot machines - if the 11 individual casinos choose to build them. The ban takes effect Oct. 15.
But casino owners in Pennsylvania say they will suffer from a smoking ban, regardless. Even if gamblers cannot light up in a casino in a bordering state, they will simply stay home or gamble less, casino officials said.
To reinforce that theory, Penn National Gaming Inc. says revenues are down 20 percent at its properties in Colorado and Illinois since smoking bans at casinos took effect Jan. 1 in those states.
Also, Philadelphia Park Racetrack & Casino in Bensalem and Penn National, which owns Hollywood Casino near Harrisburg, say the slot machines in sections set aside for nonsmokers are not as busy as machines in smoking sections.
"If those machines were doing better than the smoking area, we're business people, we'd expand the nonsmoking area," said Richard J. Gmerek, a lobbyist for Philadelphia Park.
The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in suburban Pittsburgh fears a smoking ban will send its customers to two casinos in West Virginia that are a short drive away, said spokesman David La Torre.
"What happens in Atlantic City has no bearing whatsoever on The Meadows," he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PA_XGR_SMOKING_BAN_NJOL-?SITE=NJMOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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Proposals on Smoking in PA
April 24, 2008

Pa. Casino's stand your ground! Fight for the right to accommodate your customers! Allow "Freedom of Choice" for both Smoking and Non- smoking customers.

Signs posted in separate rooms, buildings and areas should suffice.

What scares the heck out of a lot of people, is the fact that Anti-Smokers are so vicious as to not allow anyone, smoke anywhere! People should remember that privately owned business's are private property, the public is invited to patronize and work for, not forced too!

Ed Moore
Phila. Pa 19134

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Group protests casinos
Casino-Free Philadelphia launches new campaign highlighting hidden casino costs

2/29/08
Jon Meza

Anti-casino activists are hoping to score a royal flush with their latest campaign launched this week.

On Wednesday, Casino-Free Philadelphia kicked off its campaign against construction of casinos in the city - called Operation Hidden Costs - with a visit to the Governor's office at Walnut and Broad streets.

The group claims that the social costs of gambling are currently not taken into account in analysis of the costs and benefits of casinos.

However, Gov. Ed Rendell's press secretary Charles Ardo said there is "no evidence to support these allegations."

Lily Cavanagh, spokeswoman for Casino Free Philadelphia, said the group believes the figures presented by Rendell are "irresponsible" because the cost-benefit analysis was not done properly.

According to the group's calculations, bringing a casino to Philadelphia would result in a net negative financial outcome for the city

While jobs will be created, they say more jobs will be lost because the casinos will "cannibalize local businesses."

According to Cavanagh, law enforcement costs will go up because casinos will also bring an increase in white collar crime, homicides and muggings.

"There are [also] things that you can't put a price tag on," she said, referring to the suicides and divorces that gambling problems may cause.

On Wednesday, the group presented several objects with symbolic value - a ruler, calculator, magnifying glass and "homework assignment" - to Rendell's Philadelphia office director Joseph Certaine.

The "homework assignment" consisted of questions on cost-benefit analysis and the social costs of gambling, concluding with an invitation to debate the group.

Certaine accepted the calculator and "homework assignment" but rejected the ruler and magnifying glass, Cavanagh said.

Ardo said the objects were rejected because Certaine had "no need for them," and that the statistics presented by the group are "designed to alarm."

He added that the majority of people who visit the casino will "gamble responsibly," and that treatment is available to those who do not.

Casino-Free Philadelphia plans to hold several more events designed to attract attention to casino-related issues through unorthodox ways.

Next month, people suffering from gambling disorders will testify publicly and the group will hold a child-friendly Easter Egg hunt activity.

Uri Monson, executive director of the Philadelphia Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, said that after examining the city's budget for the fiscal years of 2008 through 2012, his organization found that only the revenues and not the costs of bringing the casinos to the city were taken into account.

He said his organization cannot predict what the costs will be, adding that it is a risk to ignore casino costs in the city's budget.
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