New Jersey
Atlantic City casino smoking ban advances in New Jersey Legislature
- A measure that would ban smoking in Atlantic City casinos cleared the New Jersey Senate health committee on Monday.
- New Jersey law currently allows smoking on up to 25% of the casino floor.
- Casino workers’ groups have spent several years advocating for a total ban, with little progress made — Nicola Vitola, a Borgata dealer and ban advocate, likened Monday’s vote to having “cracked the egg.”
A measure that would prohibit smoking in Atlantic City’s casinos moved forward Monday after three years of going nowhere, heartening casino workers who say they are literally sick and tired of having smoke blown in their faces at work.
The New Jersey Senate health committee approved a long-delayed bill to impose a smoking ban in Atlantic City’s nine casinos.
It was the first step in a long chain of necessary approvals, and it came as the movement by many casino workers to implement a ban entered its fourth year.
UNION PROTESTERS BLOW CIGARETTE SMOKE AT NJ LAWMAKERS AS ATLANTIC CITY SMOKING BAN REMAINS IN LIMBO
The vote also touched off a confrontation among casino workers outside the state Capitol afterward, with supporters of a smoking ban and opponents of the proposal screaming at one another on the sidewalk before being separated by their respective camps.
And a prominent business group and a casino workers union warned that a smoking ban would be “an economic catastrophe” that would cost Atlantic City and the southern New Jersey region jobs and money.
Casino workers who favor the ban were elated to finally have it voted on after years of inertia.
“We feel like we cracked the egg,” said Nicola Vitola, a Borgata dealer and a leader of the movement to ban casino smoking.
Smoking is permitted on 25% of the casino floor in Atlantic City. But those spaces are not contiguous, and smoke wafts into most areas of the gambling floor, regardless of their designation.
Casinos were specifically exempted from New Jersey’s 2006 law that banned smoking in virtually all other workplaces.
Vitola said that while she was pregnant, she was assigned to work tables in smoking sections.
“Dealers are mere inches from players blowing smoke in our faces,” she said.
A gambler lights a cigarette at Harrahs casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Sept. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Christina Renna, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey, said that while smoking is undoubtedly harmful, so, too, could be the layoffs she and executives from the casino industry warn could happen if smoking were banned.
Donna DeCaprio, president of Local 54 of the Unite Here union, which represents bartenders, cocktail servers, room cleaners and others, noted that there used to be 50,000 casino jobs in Atlantic City. She warned that the bill could eliminate 3,000 of them.
In an online discussion with Sen. Joseph Vitale, the committee’s Democratic chair, she said she warned that as many as three Atlantic City casinos could be forced to close if a smoking ban were imposed while casinos in neighboring Pennsylvania continue to offer it.
“In south Jersey, there are no replacement jobs of this caliber,” she said. “A total ban is going to result in an economic catastrophe for Atlantic City, the region and the state.”
Cynthia Hallett, president and CEO of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, said polling has shown that more people say they would visit Atlantic City casinos if smoking were prohibited.
The casino industry opposes a total smoking ban and says it is working on proposals including better ventilation systems and enclosed smoking rooms in which no employees would be involuntarily assigned to work. The Casino Association of New Jersey said in a statement it is eager “to find a meaningful compromise that will address the concerns of our employees without jeopardizing jobs and benefits to some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
A Republican senator, Vince Polistina, has said he will draft a new bill incorporating those proposals, but he has yet to do so.
The bill that was acted upon Monday now goes to the full state Senate for a vote. An identical bill also must be approved by an Assembly committee and voted upon by the full chamber before it can go to the desk of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who has said he will sign a smoking ban into law.
Sen. Shirley Turner, who has co-sponsored bills for years that would have imposed a casino smoking ban, said casino workers are left in an untenable position.
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“You shouldn’t have to make that kind of decision in this country: your job or your health,” she said. “That’s not America.”
“Dangerous heat is expected to continue across much of our region through today, with several record highs likely to be challenged again. High temperatures are forecast to peak into the low to mid 90s across most of the area,” the National Weather Service said Friday.
A Heat Advisory is in effect until 8 p.m. across the state except for Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties.
PHILADELPHIA – Philip McPherson II, a 37-year-old from Riverside, New Jersey, was sentenced Thursday, June 11, to 78 months in prison for his role in a 2022 plane crash in Lehigh County that killed a student pilot, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Sentencing and charges for fatal Lehigh Valley crash
What we know:
United States District Judge John M. Gallagher sentenced McPherson to 78 months in prison, three years of supervised release, a $5,000 fine, a $4,300 special assessment, and $19,530 in restitution. Judge Gallagher also barred McPherson from working in the aviation industry.
McPherson pleaded guilty in October to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, obstruction of an administrative proceeding, and 40 counts of serving as an airman without a certificate.
The backstory:
Court filings show that on September 28, 2022, McPherson took off from Queen City Airport in Allentown as the pilot-in-command with student pilot K.K. and crashed shortly after, resulting in K.K.’s death.
Prosecutors said McPherson acted with gross negligence, knowing he was not competent to fly as pilot-in-command. He had two prior crashes, nearly a third, and failed a reexamination for his pilot’s certificate in September 2021.
McPherson voluntarily surrendered his pilot’s certificate in October 2021 and let his Temporary Airman Certificate expire in November 2021, acknowledging his inability to meet FAA standards.
He admitted to flying with passengers without a valid FAA pilot’s certificate between October 12, 2021, and September 20, 2022.
Investigators from the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, FAA, and Salisbury Township Police Department worked on the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert Schopf and Special Assistant United States Attorney Marie Miller.
What we don’t know:
Authorities have not released further details about the circumstances leading up to the crash.
The Source: Information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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On Sunday, June 14, a bell will ring at the Historic Olde Courthouse in Mount Holly, New Jersey, as part of a festival to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
In the summer of 1776, officials rang the same bell at the courthouse in Burlington City, the seat of Burlington County at the time, after the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The bell was moved to Mount Holly in 1796 when that city became the Burlington County seat.
Marisa Bozarth, Burlington County’s museum curator of history, said courthouse bells were rung in the 1700s to signify that something important was taking place.
“They would have rung it when there was a large court case of any significance, when the jury was coming back, so people knew to return to the courthouse to hear the verdict,” she said. “The bell was also rung any time there was any public reading of any sort of important document. It was their way to get the information out to the masses quickly.”
After the wording of the Declaration of Independence was finalized and the document was signed, every state received a copy so it could be shared with the people living there. At the time, some Burlington County residents wanted to remain loyal to Britain, while others supported the movement for independence, Bozarth said.
“I would think it was a bit of a scary time because when the Declaration of Independence was finally signed and then presented, it meant we were really going to war,” she said. “We were declaring our independence, but we weren’t officially an independent nation yet. It meant a scary time was coming because Britain wasn’t going to accept that and just let us walk away.”
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