Letter: Casinos should have areas for nonsmokers

Monday, Dec. 20, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.

Every child and adult knows the dangers of cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke, including secondhand smoke and how harmful it is to our health. Yet casinos have become the "high priests" of social life here in Las Vegas. We bowl, go to the movies, have weddings and attend lectures there.

There ought to be a law that when a new casino is being built, and there's just rubble on the ground, it should be mandatory to provide a 1) ground floor for nonsmokers and 2) a second floor for smokers, each of which having an equal number of slots and tables. That way everyone is accommodated.

We nonsmokers live here and we are tired of having people blowing smoke into our lungs and telling us "Go home, you don't belong here," or "Lady, this is a casino!" In other words, the casinos consider the nonsmoker as excess baggage, but still like us to feed their machines.

New billion-dollar casinos are being built on a rapid basis. What is this slot-machine mentality? In order to have a healthy populace, we need to isolate the smokers -- from us.

SOPHIE BLOCK