Kansas Groups Call for End of Casino Smoking

The group, Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) has become the latest to voice its concerns about smoking on gaming floors and the impact this has on casino staff’s health. Therefore, CEASE insists that the state issues an end to the mandate that allows casinos to be excluded from a public smoke ban.

The organizaiton sees this as an unjust loophole that needs to be taken care of and has urged lawmakers to act. CEASE founder Joe Hafley said that all workers ask for is a clean and safe working environment for the thousands of workers employed in the industry and who are the very backbone of the activity.

Hafley himself is a casino security officer and he speaks from experience and in part in solidarity with fellow casino workers. Even though he himself doesn’t have to be at the actual tables where most of the smoking is done, he worries about secondhand smoke and says that avoiding getting tinted with the smell of cigarettes is impossible.

CEASE has also been successful in winning some legislative support to its end, with lawmakers beginning to show interest. At the same time, there has been mounting evidence that there is little to suggest that denying people the right to smoke directly at tables would actually contribute to the financial slowdown of a casino.

End Smoking Is Not the End of Economic Prosperity

In fact, the opposite remains to be true or in many cases – the casino bottom line remains unchanged as a direct impact of smoking. A report by C3 Gaming report claimed that non-smoking properties outstrip their smoking counterparts economically. Even now there are people who avoid casinos because they don’t like the smoke, for example. CEASE co-founder Peter Naccarelli was also outspoken about the issue:

Casino workers all over the country are sick and tired of risking our health over the false perception that casinos will make more money by allowing the outdated practice of indoor smoking.

CEASE co-founder Peter Naccarelli

Naccarelli is adamant that workers shouldn’t endure what is a scientifically-proven risk cause of cancer. He argued that casino workers who work in environments where smoking isn’t banned were putting their lives on the line. There have been many comprehensive studies from across the nation with casino workers who work near smokers reporting an increased number of respiratory problems.

Some have even developed cancer, and although no one directly accuses the casinos, one cannot help but wonder, as some of the victims have put it. Previously, it was the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights who weighed in on the matter.