SSmoking ban&apos,s casino exemption denounced

I feel this article will have a divided stance on casino patrons, if casinos want to please both sides they should create true non-smoking areas, like having separtae floors, not the areas simply divided by an imaginary line over which the smoke drifts anyway.
Smoking ban&apos,s casino exemption denounced: An Atlantic City bar owner said the compromise would kill her businesses. State Senate approval is expected today (The Philadelphia Inquirer) By Elisa Ung, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Inquirer Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 15--TRENTON -- Cathy Burke says legislation that would ban smoking in all indoor places except casino gaming floors would put her out of business. Burke, owner of the Irish Pub on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, says the roughly 90 percent of her customers who smoke will move next door and have a cigarette in a casino. "This is the stake through our heart, without a doubt," she said yesterday at a Statehouse news conference organized by the New Jersey Restaurant Association. Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey this year brokered a compromise that included the casino exemption, and the state Senate is expected to approve the measure today. The bill would then head to the Assembly, where Speaker Albio Sires (D., Hudson) said he would be "interested in looking at it" during the lame-duck legislative session -- assuming the casino exemption was attached. Burke said that while she opposed any smoking ban, the casino exemption would hurt her much more than an outright prohibition. Already, she said, she has a hard time competing with the "millions of free drinks" given to gamblers on casino floors. State Sen. John Adler (D., Camden), a primary sponsor of the bill, pointed out that smoking would be allowed only on casino floors. Some casinos have bars in gaming areas, but smoking would not be permitted in the rest of the casinos' bars or restaurants, he said. "We know that in states that have banned smoking... that it has been good for the hospitality industry and good for public health," Adler said. Keith Johnson, owner of Laurel Lanes Bowling Center and Brewster's Pub on Route 73 in Maple Shade, said bowling-alley owners had hoped for an exemption of their own, one that would allow smoking rooms. Otherwise, he said, his patrons could step outside for a smoke wearing bowling shoes, step in a puddle, and slide on the slick alley floors. Armando Frallicciardi Jr. said the ban would hurt his popular Trenton restaurant, Lorenzo's, where the state's political elite meet for a meal and often a smoke. "When people are doing business deals, that seems to be when they want to have cigars or cigarettes," he said. Of a group of 13 state troopers in his restaurant recently, seven were smoking cigars, Frallicciardi said. "I find it a little alarming that the same state troopers we pay to protect us... somehow the state has to protect them from themselves."