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| No | 46% | 18 votes | Total: 39 votes | |
| Yes | 54% | 21 votes |
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Add to FavoritesSmoking is passe and slowly the grasp of the tobacco industry and the slaves to nicotine are being loosened in the state of Illinois. On January 1st, 2008, smoking was banned from all public places and the state is a much better place for it. Casinos are trying to get the smoking ban lifted from Illinois casinos because they claim revenues are down because smokers don't want to go outside to smoke and do not want to go if they can't smoke. Having been to the Illinois casinos before and after the ban, I have to say how much nicer the air is after the ban than before.
Casinos in Illinois have to be a riverboat style building. Any more, the fact that there is water around the facility seems to be enough and some of the casinos can float, but could never be on a navigable river. However, the design is such to maximize the space used for gaming. It has always been clear to me that the ventilation systems were never as good as Las Vegas casinos.
My first impression when I've been to the casinos pre-ban, is the lack of good air. There was always a level of tobacco smoke in the air. Even in larger facilities, the smell was unmistaken. The next impression was that everything had a gummy, grimy feel to it. The machines, the money everything. Even when a visit was not at a prime time, like mid-day, the smell and feeling was there. I always felt like I needed a bath after a visit.
After the ban, I noticed right off, the smell was no longer of smoking. The ventilation system still didn't do a great job, but the smells were not of tobacco. Over time, the machines were cleaner and I felt like I had a more enjoyable time.
The casinos want people to stay in their seats and play. There seems to be a lot of people who like to smoke who go to casinos and the two groups want the world to let them continue doing what they do. Illinois bars were able to transition from smoking to non-smoking and although income fell for a while, it seems they are going well. One complaint when individual towns passed non-smoking bans is that people would go to other places. Once a state wide ban was passed, bars found that they needed to accommodate the smokers, but comply with the law. Since casino patrons don't have that many other places to go without a drive to Indiana, the loss of revenue can not be from the fact that a person needs to leave every 20 minutes to go have a cigarette.
This is all about money rather than health. Casinos do not care that they are helping their own clientele to shorten their lives by continuing to smoke and yet keeping people who do not smoke or who shouldn't be in a smoking environment out of their buildings. The casinos need stop blaming a law and look at why people don't come to the casinos to find ways to promote coming to the casinos by lowering table limits and making it a more enjoyable entertainment.
Learn more about this author, Rich Harrington.
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Yes
Yes. Illinois casinos should be granted an exemption from the state smoking ban. There is a way to permit smokers to smoke and gamble. There is also a way to permit non-smokers a way to gamble in a smoke-free environment. The two are not incompatible. Each needs a separate place to gamble and smoke at the same time, and a place to gamble in a healthy environment.
It is like any establishment straddling State lines. All is permissible in the State that permits an activity that is illegal on the other. No research is offered to support this viewpoint, but, somewhere, someone knows that such places exist.
Illinois casinos with the riverboat theme while sitting on water are like tiny castles with a moat around them. But the solution is the same and we are pretty sure someone has already thought of making the top deck, smokers' badlands and the main deck, non-smokers' territory.
Of the several themes surrounding the casino and smoking question, a lot of forces are at work. Whereas health has won out pretty much as a proven issue that smoking is a deadly habit, other issues including loss revenue and contention between parties involving alleged corruption are intertwined with a desire to moderate in favor of abating laws somewhat in favor of allowing some smoking.
So neither party in this smoking versus non-smoking issue can be faulted for being utterly adamant about a point of view the other abhors- for one, the freedom to breathe-in healthy air and for the other, the freedom to breathe-in the smoke he or she wants even as they know that it is, like gambling, playing roulette on a life or death machine.
All know that gambling and smoking are addictive. Abuse of either are sure to result in dire consequences were each to become all degrading passions: One could lead to financial ruin while the other could lead to premature death.
A casino the size of those in Connecticut is an assembly of rooms that serve many functions. Having a section devoted to smokers and one devoted to non-smokers, however large and segmented to accommodate the various games would permit both to enjoy that which drives the recreational and consummate gambler. The rest of the establishment would be smoke free with one exception.
Hershey Park in Pennsylvania accommodates smokers by providing these folks with smoking spaces designed to minimize smoke from escaping the designated smoking area. Like those teacher smoking rooms of yesteryear, they isolate even the brightest that should know better to avoid mingling with those who choose their poison in the form of a stick of tobacco.
The smoking ban went into effect in Illinois on January 1, 2008, and as Monica Davey in Times People noted, a ban also took place in Paris France of all places. There were predictions then that revenues would fall, that most gamblers are also smokers, etcetera.
So far and probably forever, those who would deny suicidal smokers their freedom to smoke their way out of this life are winners on the grounds that secondhand smoke is just as dangerous as firsthand smoke. It would be just as suicidal for members of the Illinois General Assembly to tinker with smoking prohibitions. Tinkering, like smoking, is out.
So, it is the end of the line for the rugged individualist, the Humphrey Bogart type in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, without a cigarette dangling between dry lips, will their luck change? Ah, if only one were able to smoke alcohol.
Learn more about this author, Gerard Coulombe.
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