On Sept. 20, I testified at the Pennsylvania Capitol Complex as part of a House Health Committee hearing on HB 1657. The bill’s title is “The Protecting Workers from Secondhand Smoke Act.”

The bill is designed as a cleanup of the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act of 2008 and would impose further smoking restrictions within private clubs, some drinking environments, and casinos that were not fully included in the 2008 legislation. I was invited to the hearing to discuss the casino aspect.

The first person to testify was a representative of Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE). I have had the opportunity to meet members of this group in several locations across the United States. These people are having their health damaged by having to work within casino environments that contain second-hand smoke (SHS), and they are working — and begging — to encourage their legislative representatives to protect them.

One of the frustrations of the hearing was listening to a few committee members question the representative from CEASE following her presentation. It was obvious that several members had no idea what takes place in a casino. Moreover, they were not really willing to admit that they knew nothing about casinos.

When a person is dealing cards on a small blackjack table with several people facing them who are smoking, it is not as if the employee can walk away or turn their head. The committee members simply did not understand how up-close and personal smoking is when a person is dealing cards, dice, or tiles on a table game. 

I think a valuable experience for every legislator who believes that smoking should be allowed in casinos would be to have them stand and act like they are dealing cards and have four or five people blowing smoke toward them from about three feet away.

Follow the science

Following the CEASE presentation, several niche operators spoke about private clubs, cigar bars, and the like. They basically wanted to be excluded from any modifications to the 2008 act, with the exception of one group, which wanted to be included in the Clean Indoor Air Act because when its membership voted, they always got into an argument. In essence, they wanted the government to end these arguments.

It was then my time to speak.

I spoke of my 50-plus years of involvement with the industry and explained I had a great deal of first-person experience with second-hand smoke within a casino environment as a table game dealer, a manager, an executive, and a CEO. I also reviewed the scientific research on smoking and casinos, addressing the following areas:

• The research by Dr. Stephen Babb and others showed that there was no question that second-hand smoke is a health hazard to casino guests and customers. 
• The surgeon general of the United States and the Centers for Disease Control found that research has indicated that ventilation systems do not remedy the risk associated with second-hand smoke.
• Research by Michael Tynan of the Centers for Disease Control and others indicated that special non-smoking areas in a smoking casino pose health risks to employees and customers in those non-smoking areas.
• Numerous research efforts have found a high degree of co-morbidity between problem gamblers and smoking, and this research indicates why some in the industry want to maintain smoking, as they seek the added revenue from catering to the problem gambler.

Unfiltered testimony

Following my presentation, Bill McQuade spoke. He was representing ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. In his testimony, Mr. McQuade explained that this organization was founded in 1894 and is “a technical and professional society with a mission to serve humanity by advancing the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and their allied fields.”

The organization has over 53,000 members and “focuses on improving building systems, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, refrigeration, and sustainability through research, standards writing, publishing, certification, and continuing education.” 

Mr. McQuade’s testimony was clear: “ASHRAE holds the position that the only means of avoiding health effects and eliminating indoor environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure is to ban all smoking activity inside and near buildings. This position is supported by the conclusion of health authorities that any level of ETS exposure leads to adverse health effects.”

Mr. McQuade’s testimony was quite significant, and it seems to have troubled the Republicans on the committee, for a historical defense for indoor smoking in the past (with both airlines and casinos) was that the air could be filtered to be safe. Parroting this myth had been used as a defense to allow casino operators to continue to keep their employees in an unsafe working environment and to mislead their customers as to the risks associated with frequenting casinos.

What is most interesting about Mr. McQuade’s comments is that the safe filtration argument was the last bastion of defense by the industry to allow indoor smoking. When a global group with substantial credibility states that the filtration argument is a myth, the industry appears out of bullets. 

Silent opposition

An interesting sidebar to the hearing was that there was not a representative of the casino industry present to defend the different schemes for indoor smoking. This was also the case at an East Coast gaming show in 2022, where no representative of a casino would defend indoor smoking, and at the recent Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where a smoking panel did not include anyone defending those states and operators that allowed smoking within casinos.

Part of this is certainly attributable to the reality that there is simply no credible scientific evidence suggesting that indoor smoking is safe. The research on comorbidity with problem gambling and smoking has clearly indicated the hypocrisy of those in the industry who say they are concerned about problem gambling. The non-smoking sections and filtration arguments have proven to be so much bunk, and second-hand smoke has long been recognized as an agent of death.

For any representative of the industry to forward such nonsense becomes a situation where a firm and industry are seen to be misleading their markets and employees about a hazardous situation, and this can substantiate legal and regulatory intervention. This is what finally killed smoking on airplanes in the U.S. And in the absence of any leadership in the casino industry to appreciate that subjecting employees and customers to a known health risk is inappropriate behavior, this will be what kills smoking in casinos.

Airlines delayed the inevitable elimination of smoking for many years by paying off politicians, conducting dishonest research and dishonest lobbying, and engaging in myth-making. Unfortunately, many lives of airline customers and employees were ruined. We are now watching some segments of the U.S. gaming industry follow in those footsteps.