The casinos had warned that thousands of jobs and millions in gambling revenue and taxes could be lost if smoking was banned.
A judge on Friday allowed smoking to continue in Atlantic City's casinos, giving some measure of relief to the city's struggling casino industry while rebuffing workers who have long sought to be able to breathe clean air on the casino floor.
"We are gratified by the court's decision to dismiss plaintiff's complaint and deny its attempt to change the Smoke-Free Air Act outside of the legislative process," said Mark Giannantonio, president of Resorts Casino and of the Casino Association of New Jersey. White said the ruling gives legislators "even more reason to uphold their responsibility to finally do the right thing and pass the bipartisan legislation that New Jerseyans overwhelmingly support," he said. "It's time to make things right for the thousands of us workers still working and living without the same protection afforded to every other New Jerseyan."
Whether to ban smoking is one of the most controversial issues not only in Atlantic City casinos, but in other states where workers have expressed concern about secondhand smoke. They are waging similar campaigns in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Virginia. In a May 13 hearing before the judge in Trenton, Smith raised issues of equal protection under the law, and what she called a constitutional right to safety. The judge, however, said the workers' "reliance on a constitutional right to safety is not well-settled law" and predicted they would not be likely to prevail with such a claim.
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