New Jersey gaming staff have been dealt a critical authorized blow Friday when a state choose dismissed a lawsuit that sought to ban smoking on on line casino flooring.
The ruling in favor of Atlantic Metropolis’s 9 struggling casinos was delivered by Superior Court docket Decide Patrick Bartels.
The tobacco-wary on line casino staff filed a lawsuit in Could, in search of a everlasting ban on smoking over the well being issues posed by second-hand smoke.
When the state abolished smoking indoors practically 20 years in the past, they did so with an exception — allowing smoking on 25% of the on line casino ground.
The on line casino staff first referred to as on state lawmakers to ban smoking 4 years in the past, however when a invoice to that impact stalled, they filed their lawsuit.
Opponents of the ban say it’s going to result in on line casino closures and hundreds of layoffs.
In addition they imagine placing an finish to smoking in Atlantic Metropolis casinos will drive gamblers to casinos in neighboring Pennsylvania.
On line casino house owners additionally contend the state would lose thousands and thousands in tax income beneath such a ban.
Atlantic Metropolis‘s 9 casinos have been hurting financially because the begin of the COVID pandemic, a restoration made even more durable with the appearance of on-line and app-based playing.
The on line casino trade has lengthy opposed a smoking ban, and mentioned it has been working to develop higher air flow techniques in addition to enclosed smoking rooms, staffed by workers who volunteer to work there.
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