New Jersey
Auto union leader urges New Jersey lawmakers to pass casino smoking ban
Shawn Fain, the international president of the United Auto Workers union who recently won large raises for his workers, is taking aim at a new target: New Jersey lawmakers who are delaying votes on a bill to ban smoking in Atlantic City’s casinos.
The head of the powerful union, which represents workers at three casinos here, is urging legislators to move the bill forward in a scheduled hearing Thursday, warning that the union will “monitor and track” their votes.
Many casino workers have been pushing for three years to close a loophole in the state’s public smoking law that specifically exempts casinos from a ban. Despite overwhelming bipartisan support from lawmakers, and a promise from the state’s Democratic governor to sign the measure, it has been bottled up in state government committees without a vote to move it forward.
The same state Senate committee that failed to vote on the bill last month is due to try again on Thursday. Fain’s letter to the state Senate and Assembly was timed to the upcoming hearing.
The casino industry opposes a ban, saying it will cost jobs and revenue. It has suggested creating enclosed smoking rooms, but has refused to divulge details of that plan.
“Thousands of UAW members work as table game dealers at the Caesars, Bally’s, and Tropicana casinos in Atlantic City, and are exposed on a daily basis to the toxic harms of secondhand smoking,” Fain wrote in a letter sent last week to lawmakers. “Patrons blow cigarette/tobacco smoke directly into their faces for eight hours, and due to the nature of their work, table dealers are unable to take their eyes away from the table, so they bear through the thick smoke that surrounds their workplace.”
Fain rejected smoking rooms as a solution, calling the suggestion “preposterous,” and said it will oppose any amendment allowing anything less than a total ban on smoking in the casinos.
The Wildwoods is known for its wide beaches, lively boardwalk and being a haven for “Doo Wop” fans.
Once on the island, it is hard to miss this funky, colorful architecture synonymous with the Wildwoods.
“We like to think it’s still in its heyday,” John Donio, the President of the Doo Wop Preservation League, said. “Our collection is one of the finest on the entire East Coast, right here in Wildwood.”
Marked by a neon sign garden, the Doo Wop Experience Museum sits across from the Wildwoods Convention Center in Fox Park. Inside, the museum houses dozens of items. The building used to be the iconic Surfside Diner.
“We’ve been lucky to get different people to donate neon signs, furniture, bicycles, period pieces,” Donio said.
Karen Samuels serves as the tour guide for the Guided Trolley Tour.
“I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and that’s what the tour is all about,” Samuels said. “It’s a midcentury architecture and music scene of the Doo Wop history.”
The museum is free, and starting next month, it will be open Thursday through Sunday until Labor Day weekend.
“This tells the story of the Wildwoods. It’s the fabric of our community,” Donio said.
It’s the community that’s kept doo wop alive and well.
Football schedules for the 2025 season are starting to be announced all across the Garden State and High School On SI New Jersey will share these as we see them.
Plainfield High School, under the direction of first-year head coach Donald Jones, a Plainfield alumnus and former defensive back with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, has announced its 2025 schedule.
The big news surrounding Plainfield’s upcoming schedule is that the annual Thanksgiving Day game vs. Westfield, a rivalry that was the state’s third-longest Turkey Day matchup, dating back to 1899 during the William McKinley Administration, will be played as the season opener in 2025 for both teams on August 28 in Plainfield.
The reason for switching the traditional Thanksgiving Day game vs. Plainfield to the season opener has to do with the ever-expanding NJSIAA state playoffs. The New Jersey high school football playoffs in 2025 will begin on November 7 or 8, for the first round, with the state finals potentially being played at MetLife Stadium or Rutgers University between November 28 and December 3, according to the NJSIAA. This year, Thanksgiving Day will fall on November 27.
“They’ve extended the state playoffs so long that it became a safety concern,” said Westfield High School Director of Athletics James DeSarno. “This was a mutual decision between Plainfield High School and ourselves and one that was made in the interest of safety.”
Westfield leads the all-time series 66-46-7 but the Cardinals snapped the Blue Devils’ 13-game winning streak in the series last season, claiming its first win since 2011 with a hard-fought 14-9 defensive battle on a rain-soaked field in Westfield.
This year’s season-opening tilt vs. Westfield is the first of three straight home games at the historic Hub Stein Sports Complex Stadium, as the Cardinals will then host New Brunswick on September 5 and Woodbridge on September 12. Plainfield’s first road test comes on September 19 at Perth Amboy, followed by another road game the following week at the Haverford School in Pennsylvania on September 27.
After that it’s home tests vs. Franklin (October 3) and Colonia (October 10), before closing out the regular season with road games vs. Somerville (October 17) and Linden (October 25).
Jones played collegiately at Lackawanna, then Youngstown State before being signed as an undrafted free agent by Buffalo in 2010. For the last three years, he’s been the wide receivers coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in nearby Edison, which hasn’t lost a Big Central Conference football game since November of 2020, a 31-game streak.
The first-year Plainfield mentor takes over a program that went 6-4 a year ago which included a second straight appearance in the NJSIAA Playoffs where the Cards dropped an 18-12 decision to Passaic Tech in a North Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 quarterfinal round game.
8/28 vs. Westfield 6pm
9/5 vs. New Brunswick 6pm
9/12 vs Woodbridge 6pm
9/19 at Perth Amboy 6:00pm
9/27 at The Haverford School 1:00pm
10/3 vs. Franklin 6:00pm
10/10 vs. Colonia 6:00pm
10/17 at Somerville 6:00pm
10/25 at Linden 1:00pm
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