Pennsylvania’s House committee moves forward with casino anti-smoking bill

• Pennsylvania’s House committee pushes bill forward with no floor date set just yet
• The bill seeks to end indoor smoking on casino gaming floors
• Previous attempts have failed, but lawmakers continue to rally momentum

Pennsylvania remains one of the states to allow smoking inside casinos and their gaming floors.

This is part of a nationwide exemption, which, while acknowledging the 2008 Clean Indoor Air Act, which prohibits indoor smoking, has allowed casinos to welcome smokers with open arms, so to speak.

The fear was that an abrupt economic downturn would be worsened if smokers were turned away then, but things have been changing rapidly.

Casino floors in Pennsylvania could soon catch a breath of fresh air

The percentage of smokers in the United States has been rapidly declining, and economic data suggest that there is little actual connection between banning smoking on casino floors and registering economic downturn.

Yet, the Protecting Workers From Secondhand Smoke Act seems poised to make progress in the Keystone State this year, with its authors arguing that there is little need for casinos to accommodate smokers, when the decline of the smoking population has been noticeable, and given the established and well-documented dangers associated with second-hand smoking which has been tied to chronic disease and cancer in workers on casino floors.

Backed by Rep. Dan Frankel, the bill is enjoying bipartisan backing, and it is seeking to set right a long-overdue wrong. The lawmaker said:

"Only 2 in 10 Pennsylvanians smoke at this point — and going out in Pennsylvania shouldn’t feel like taking a time machine to a long-gone era before the science made clear that smoking was deadly."

The bill’s main goal is to ban indoor smoking in casinos, but its full text is a little more nuanced than that, leaving some wiggle room for local businesses. Private clubs, for example, could continue to allow indoor smoking, given that employees agree to it – a two-year vote would have to take place to enact the measure again.

Smoking remains a divisive topic, but opposition is mounting all the same

In the meantime, while the committee has sent the bill out on its way to the House of Representatives floor, it is not yet clear when lawmakers will vote on it. If this hurdle is cleared, the bill still needs to take a rather long way to the governor’s desk, and not least, pass the same legal crucible in the Senate.

Smoking is a hot-button topic all over the nation. New Jersey’s casino workers have lobbied actively to end the exemption mandate and have elicited strong support from prominent lawmakers. Despite the fanfare, however, there has been little actual meaningful action to snuff out smoking on casino floors.

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