Kansas On line casino Invoice Filed to Extinguish Indoor Tobacco Smoking
Kansas on line casino smoking may quickly be extinguished if a bipartisan group of state lawmakers get their approach.
A gambler taking part in a slot machine at Harrah’s Atlantic Metropolis lights a cigarette on Sept. 29, 2023. Kansas casinos enable smoking, however laws searching for to repeal the exemption has been launched within the Topeka capital. (Picture: AP)
Home Invoice 2622 was launched this week by Reps. Owen Donohoe (R-Shawnee), David Buehler (R-Lansing), Sydney Carlin (D-Manhattan), Ford Carr (D-Wichita), and Dennis Highberger (D-Lawrence). The laws seeks to amend the Kansas Indoor Clear Air Act, handed in 2010.
The state tobacco statute prohibits indoor smoking in most workplaces, together with places of work, eating places and bars, and customary areas of condo buildings. The regulation, nevertheless, supplied an exemption for the state’s 4 industrial casinos.
Boot Hill, Kansas Star, Hollywood, and Kansas Crossing casinos can enable indoor cigarette and cigar smoking wherever on their gaming flooring. Nonetheless, every on line casino has designated areas which might be supposedly smoke-free. Smoking opponents say on line casino air flow methods don’t shield folks and employees from harmful secondhand smoke.
HB 2622 would power the 4 casinos to eradicate indoor smoking from their gaming areas.
On line casino Staff Delight
CEASE, On line casino Staff In opposition to Smoking Results, is a grassroots coalition of on line casino employees that originated in Atlantic Metropolis. The group was shaped after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) allowed indoor on line casino smoking to return to the 9 casinos in Atlantic Metropolis in July 2021. That’s after ordering them to go smoke-free amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
CEASE has since expanded to different states the place on line casino smoking stays. CEASE has chapters in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Kansas. The CEASE chapter in Kansas celebrated the introduction of HB 2622.
For too lengthy, on line casino employees like myself have needed to endure the hazardous circumstances of secondhand smoke all within the identify of a paycheck,” mentioned Joe Hafley, the Kansas CEASE Kansas chief who works as a safety officer at Hollywood On line casino at Kansas Speedway. “It’s not simply in regards to the playing cards, slots, and income — this invoice is a beacon of hope for the hardworking folks in our trade, signaling that our well being and well-being matter.”
Hafley added that on line casino employees shouldn’t “have to decide on between our well being and a paycheck,” a slogan that’s been often utilized by CEASE members.
Laws Pushback
HB 2622 has been referred to the Home Committee on Well being and Human Companies for preliminary overview. The laws proposes hanging language from the Indoor Clear Act. The invoice would erase the exemption for a “gaming ground of a lottery gaming facility or racetrack gaming facility.”
The casinos will presumably struggle in opposition to the invoice. Gaming pursuits proceed to argue that indoor smoking is important to the well being of their slot and desk sport operations. Requiring a smoker to go outdoors interrupts their play and is believed to trigger some people who smoke to finish their on line casino visits when the urge to mild up comes.
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention estimates that about 11.5% of the grownup inhabitants at the moment smokes. A smoker is outlined as somebody who smokes a cigarette or cigar a minimum of a number of instances per week. Kansas’ smoking fee is significantly increased than the nationwide common at an estimated 16%.
Kansas’ Division of Well being and Surroundings says smoking charges are increased amongst poor and low-income households. Almost 31% of adults incomes lower than $25K per 12 months smoke, and 20% of these making $25K to $50K smoke. Lower than 13% of these incomes over $50K usually mild up.
