Kansas Casino Employees Unite to Ban Indoor Smoking

Posted on: Might 12, 2023, 12:59h. 

Final up to date on: Might 12, 2023, 01:23h.

Kansas on line casino staff working on the state’s 4 brick-and-mortar industrial gaming properties have shaped a coalition to induce lawmakers in Topeka to shut the indoor smoking loophole.

Kansas’ Indoor Clear Air Act prohibits smoking in most public indoor locations. The state legislation, which went into impact in July 2010, gives exceptions for gaming venues such because the state’s 4 industrial casinos.

CEASE was shaped in 2021 in New Jersey in response to smoking being allowed to return contained in the 9 casinos in Atlantic Metropolis. The smoking comeback adopted a brief cessation of indoor on line casino smoking ordered by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Group Expands to Midwest

CEASE is right now lobbying a number of state governments to shut indoor smoking loopholes afforded to industrial casinos. Together with its New Jersey and now Kansas efforts, CEASE has chapters in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

We’re becoming a member of our friends from throughout the nation and launching CEASE Kansas to demand a clear and secure working surroundings for the 1000’s of staff who’re the spine of the gaming trade,” stated Joe Hafley, founding father of CEASE Kansas.

Hafley is a on line casino safety officer who says his job requires him to frequent smoking sections.

“Even when I’m not caught on a gaming desk like a few of my coworkers, I’m nonetheless compelled to breathe secondhand smoke all through my shift and go house smelling like cigarettes,” Hafley continued. “For a lot too lengthy, on line casino staff have been the one group of people that lack protections from the hazards of secondhand smoke in our office.”

Although the Kansas Legislature concluded its 2023 session on April 28, the on line casino smoking statute is anticipated to be taken up within the state Home when it convenes for the 2024 session in January.

State Gaming Regulators Impartial

The Kansas Racing and Gaming Fee (KRGC) stated it has no formal place on the continued allowance of indoor on line casino smoking.

“As a regulatory physique, KRGC is impartial on this situation and doesn’t take a place. KRGC enforces state statutes and rules, which at present permit for smoking on the on line casino ground,” learn a press release from Randy Evans, the KRGC’s public data officer.

CEASE members say they’ve been compelled to work in poisonous environments lengthy sufficient. And with Mom’s Day being this Sunday, Nicole Vitola, a desk video games seller on the Borgata in Atlantic Metropolis who cofounded- the group, says sufficient is sufficient.

This weekend, as many rejoice and spend time with a few of the most essential girls of their lives, numerous moms and even pregnant girls will present as much as their jobs in Atlantic Metropolis casinos and be compelled to work in harmful situations as they breathe secondhand smoke,” Vitola declared.

“After working within the casinos for 20 years, I do know this actuality firsthand. I labored in a on line casino all through my two pregnancies, and in a single horrible incident, was compelled to work in a excessive curler room with six VIPs blowing cigar smoke in my face whereas I used to be visibly pregnant,” she stated. “I feared for my well being and for the well being of my unborn little one.”