By Cindi Delaney
Candidate for Mesquite City Council
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to walk into local casinos without the haze and smell of tobacco in the air?
Smoking is an awful habit and it has become more and more socially unacceptable. I wish no one smoked. I wish none of my friends or family endangered their health by smoking.
We all know smoking is bad for us and that second hand smoke is bad for us.
I won’t dispute the obvious facts.
The Smoke Free Mesquite and Clean Indoor Air proponents have many compelling arguments to support an ordinance banning smoking from all indoor places including bars and casinos.
Let’s take a look at the larger picture.
I believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. I believe it is a personal choice to walk into a bar or casino, and that each person is responsible for their choices.
As was pointed out to me by the owner of a small local bar/casino, “My license is a privileged license. I have to maintain that privilege. People know when they walk in the door there might be smoke in the air. They make a choice.”
I don’t believe it’s my job as a city council member to legislate public health. If that were true we would shut down all fast food restaurants, limit the amount of candy or sugar stores could sell and require all citizens to exercise.
Remember when Chris Christie tried to ban the extra large soft drinks?
Casino and bar owners know what works for their businesses and I don’t believe we should be telling them how to run their business. They have spent considerable amounts of money to research the smoking issue and have decided to allow smoking in their establishments. Their business, their call. By the way most casino owners in Mesquite don’t smoke and don’t like smoking. It’s a business decision.
I’ve come to the conclusion . . .
We live in Mesquite, NV a small city of about 19,000 people. The hospitality industry is the single largest employer in Mesquite.
The hospitality industry makes the largest contribution to our tax base through gaming and room tax. This filters back to Mesquite.
Our economy is directly linked to the hospitality industry in many ways.
One example of the many to be found while researching the economic impact of smoking bans on communities with casinos and bars is this: According to the Illinois Casino Gaming Association (an industry organization), the smoking ban was responsible for a 19 percent decline in revenue during its first year.
Several other areas including New Orleans and Colorado site anywhere from 8% to 20% decline in revenue in the first year of the ban. They also say that it took approximately two years to recover and normalize.
Those are areas that are not heavily dependent on the hospitality industry. They have much larger populations and diversity in industry.
In Mesquite we have over 2,000 citizens that depend on their jobs in the hospitality industry to pay their bills and support their families.
Casinos are in business to make money, as they should be. If we suffered even a ten percent drop in revenue what would happen?
There would be layoffs.
At this point we are only considering the effect this action would have on hospitality workers. The effects would be far reaching, trickling down to all of our businesses.
Do you remember when the Oasis Casino/Hotel closed, causing several hundred families to lose their jobs and forcing them to move to other areas?
The local economy took a devastating blow.
So let’s look at just the basic numbers. Casinos/Bars suffer a ten percent drop in revenue. To stay alive and profitable they laid off ten percent of their workforce.
Which 200 of your friends and neighbors are you willing to tell they no longer have jobs?
I cannot sponsor or support an ordinance that would be likely to cause many Mesquite residents to become unemployed.
It is true that the hospitality industry is a major employer of the Mesquite area. This means that, with very few employment opportunities, many people who deserve a healthy, smoke-free work environment are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos, jeopardizing their health for a paycheck. While you ask the question, “Which 200 of your friends and neighbors are you willing to tell they no longer have jobs?”, I would ask you which employees would you like to tell they have terminal cancer because you weren’t willing to take a stand for them?
Ask the Canadian people how the casinos are doing after they said, no more smoke.
They are fine.
Not quite. Ever since the Canadian smoking ban, the NY smoker friendly native casino right at the Ontario/Quebec/NY border just as one example, picked up so much Canadian business that not only 2/3’s of its customers are now Canadians but they had a major expansion to make it into a resort with a beautiful hotel not too long after the Canadian casino smoking bans. Are the non-smoking casinos in Canada still in existence? Yes they are but native casinos by the Canadian borders are thriving much more and do the ”thank you lord dance” that white politicians were so stupid as to totally ban smoking casinos in Canada.
Absolutely correct! Well written and accurate. Don’t like smoke, then don’t smoke. Don’t want to breathe second hand smoke? Then don’t go to a business that has it. The end
Well put. We have a cabal of people who turn to government for all of their answers and solutions to problems that are not the responsibility of government.
Well we won’t vote for you.
Oh bye the way it wasn’t Cristy it was Deblozio
I agree 100% couldn,t have said it better, withe the exception that you would see a lot of casino shut down and lay off everybody. I am a smoker, and I would not go in a casino that was no smoking, just like we did last time the state passed the stupid law, it only took 3 weeks to get it overturned, and I saved a lot of money in those 3 weeks.Nevada, the last free state in the country.
To Cindi Delaney in response to your stand on a Smoke Free work place, what stood out to me the most is the paragraph that says: “In Mesquite we have over 2,000 citizens that depend on their jobs in the hospitality industry to pay their bills and support their families.” I was a part of that 2000 employees in the casino work place a few years ago because it came down to a time of need when I first moved to Mesquite. There wasn’t a lot of choices at the time. I am a non smoker. I have never smoked in my life, as a child having asthma so it just never seemed to be a desire as I know it is for many. However, I had to take the job immediately which was cleaning the casino floor as a porter. It is already an undesirable job but on top of it breathing that cigarette smoke for 8 hours each day was even worse. I was only there for about a year but I know people that have been there for almost 20 years. So sad they have to deal with this every day of their lives. My concern is for the employees not the customers, they can make a choice not to come in but we need the employment and hopefully the city chooses someone who will go to bat for them.
One small comment, It was Michael Bloomberg (D- NYC), not Chris Christie (R-New Jersey, who
tried to downsize soft drinks. Maybe it was the cost that he objected to….a small lemonade costs $5 in Time Square. Tourists like fair prices and good value. The market place will reward the businesses that meet customer requirements. With gaming revenues wavering, casinos may re-evaluate their own positions on smoke-free environment. City council doesn’t need to decide that.
Thanks for speaking your mind, Cindi.
Basing your conclusions ONLY on monetary matters does not help your re-election campaign, even though it may garner support from the casino management. You fail to recognize this issue as deeply personal to people’s health and well-being, especially those that actually work for a living inside one of these smoke pits. The numbers you use to scare the reader into believing there is/will be a drop in tax revenue is all speculation on your part. In fact, you don’t know – do you? You don’t know what benefits or liabilities will be the result of this vote. You make it up. Perhaps, you can just blame the Russians as your obvious hero crazy Hillary does. This kind of one sided monetary grab at the expense of the “personal story” behind this initiative is going to cost you this election. Remember, real humans have became sick and some have died, and all you can do is crunch tax dollars.
Good for you but I do not like walking into any casino that smells as bad as they do here. I know they will never submit to the no smoking so maybe a new casino would have half and half and see how it goes. I see all the excuses you have come up with but I do not agree. That is the way the ball bounces here. Mesquite just does not grow. I am sick of seeing all the closed stores we have here and I will be dead and gone before it grows. So, no sense trying to bring it up at a council meeting, just a waste of time when good people are trying. My two cents for what it is worth.
Linda Faas, thank you for the correction. It was Bloomberg.
All other facts I have quoted are easily verifiable by doing a little research.
Another bad political quote.