Columnist Bob Shemeligian: Where there’s smoke, are there jobs?

Bob Shemeligian

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

THE BET WAS to me, but because I was reading about a proposed smoking ban for casinos in the newspaper I had hidden in my lap, I had to be nudged by the poker dealer.

"You know reading's not allowed at the table," he scolded me. Like a recalcitrant schoolchild, I apologized and dumped the paper.

An old guy who had spent the last three hours blowing the smoke from a pack of Camel straights in my general direction laughed. And I laughed with him.

Yeah, you're not allowed to read or do crossword puzzles while waiting for a hand, 'cause that would interfere with the integrity of the game.

But you can blow more smoke into the air than an old Ford in need of a ring job, and no one will say a word.

Well, finally, federal officials are saying what anyone who works in a casino already knows: The employees who don't indulge still breathe in the equivalent of seven cigarettes a day.

Naturally, the tobacco lobby disputes that passive smoke causes cancer, but no one who works in a casino doubts that it's in the air.

I know. I used to work in a casino, and I still frequent casino card rooms. Although lately I've been sticking to the tournaments. I find that when I play live, I play too long.

The money I lose doesn't scare me half as much as the thought of breathing in all that smoke. I can smell it on my clothing after I get home. I can feel the tar in my throat and lungs the next morning.

The proposed workplace smoking ban is not new. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials began setting their sights on casinos as well as other workplaces earlier this year after the agency had gained success in helping to ban smoking in most public places.

But, recently, there's been a spate of bad press about the prosed ban.

Local officials have made it clear that a smoking ban in casinos would cause a loss of tens of thousands jobs, simply because smokers who leave the table for nicotine fix spend that much less time gambling.

I agree that cutting out cigarette smoke in casinos would cost jobs. But I don't agree on the types of jobs that will be lost.

Certainly, there will be a need for fewer respiratory therapists to work with smokers whose lungs have turned to ash, and there will be a need for fewer oncologists, surgeons and undertakers.

But a loss of casino jobs ... because you tell smokers they have to go to a well-ventilated smoking area to light up?

I tend to go along with my friend, Larry Lodi, a horse player from Boston, who comes here three times a year.

"Let's say I bring $500 for the long weekend, and I smoke," Lodi said. "I play until the money's gone. So it takes me a little longer to lose it. How's that going to save jobs?"

Surely, officials in Nevada -- of all places -- know that visitors who are asked to control their smoking will still gamble.

And if, by toughening workplace rules on smoking, we can help them kick the habit, then we'll have them as our guests for that much longer.