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twitterCityCenter’s Aria to protect blackjack dealers from smoke
staff file photo
A view of MGM Mirage’s Aria as seen from the Panorama Towers in February.
Fri, Aug 21, 2009 (3 a.m.)
Sun Archives
- Smoking study capped Caesars dealer’s long, lonely fight (5-12-2009)
- Study arms smoking foes (5-7-2009)
- Closer look at smoking ban (5-1-2009)
- Casino restaurant patrons can't elude secondhand smoke (1-16-2009)
- Study finds high pollution levels in casino restaurants (1-15-2009)
- Smoking ban not doing all the banning sponsors hoped (7-21-2009)
Go ahead, blow smoke in your blackjack dealer’s face. If you’re playing at the soon-to-open Aria at CityCenter, they will hardly notice.
That’s because Aria’s blackjack tables will be equipped with an air curtain that shoots straight up from the table, dividing dealer and players.
That’s the next-to-best thing Aria could do to protect dealers’ health, aside from not allowing smoking in the casino, said Cindy Ortega, senior vice president of energy and environmental services for MGM Mirage, an owner of CityCenter.
“I can take three matches, light up the matches, blow them out, and I put the match right there and the smoke goes right straight up,” she said. “The air curtain is there to protect the dealer from the smoke. Now, it’s not 100 percent (as good) as a nonsmoker, but I think we’ve taken such giant leaps. I think it’s really great.”
Since smokers and their cigarettes are welcomed, MGM Mirage sought a way to make the tobacco-infused air more tolerable for its workers.
The air curtain sounds like a good addition to the gaming floor, said Joe Carbon, head of the gaming division for Transport Workers Union Local 721.
“If you have four or five players blowing smoke in your face, it’s not a good deal,” he said. He hadn’t heard of the air curtain table, but from the sound of it, it “would be a good idea.”
Local 721 represents dealers at Caesars and Wynn and is not involved in a lawsuit between a retired Caesars dealer and parent company Harrah’s Entertainment, in which the dealer is suing because she claims the secondhand smoke affected her health.
The lawsuit is based on the plaintiff’s claim that Caesars didn’t do enough to protect its employees from secondhand smoke, the Sun reported.
Before Carbon came to Las Vegas, he said he had heard of some casinos that had air racks — devices that blew smoky air away from dealers. But he thinks those are long gone, he said.
The union has during negotiations asked management to create smoking and nonsmoking gaming areas, allowing both the customer and dealer to choose where they play or work.
CityCenter, including Aria, was designed to U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards, Ortega said.
“It’s not whether smoking is allowed, it has to do with how the air is treated in a LEED building,” she said.
For LEED certification, it’s not how air is handled, but how the air is ventilated, Ortega said. As long as the area where smoking is permitted is ventilated separately from the nonsmoking areas, and the air intakes aren’t near an exit or exhaust area, the building can receive the coveted green designation, she said.
Smoking is allowed at Aria, she said, but there are designated pathways for nonsmokers that are buffered by 25 feet of nonsmoking space on both sides. It is also possible to move from one end of Aria to the other without going through the casino, thus avoiding the secondhand smoke, she said.
“Our target is sustainability,” she said. MGM wanted to allow guests to smoke if they wanted, but not affect nonsmokers.
“So we came out with what I call the clean-air strategy. The clean-air strategy is (to) make the best air possible for everybody.”
The casino went “one gigantic step forward” and invested in a displacement floor, Ortega said.
At Aria air will be piped down under the floor that was designed with holes throughout. The cooled air then rises from small holes in the floor through the carpet.
“Everything rises — that’s your smoke, those are your sneezes, those are everything, it’s rising up if you’re in the casino,” Ortega said. “There’s this big dead empty space at the top — it’s a high ceiling.”
Discussion: 29 comments so far…
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Very interesting and positive development! Can't wait to see this innovation in action when I get to see Project CC in person this fall.
At last the majority are being considered over the minority. Well done MGM looks like my days at Harrahs casinos are coming to an end.
I can hardly wait to watch that 'air curtain' blow the dealers down card straight up. Won't happen all the time but once in a while the dealer will place his cards too close to the holes.
Wouldn't executing all smokers be a far simpler solution?
See, the Aria is making an effort to allow smoker's and nonsmokers gamble together in peace. The casino is choosing to implement devices and gaming areas for nonsmokers. I applaud that they are voluntarily doing so and not being forced by local gov't to do so. I am a smoker and will not quit nor advocate mandated no smoking laws as businesses should be able to operate as they wish and the Aria may corner a niche market with the technology they are implementing.
"smoker's and nonsmokers gamble together in peace"
I'm not sure how an air wall between the gamblers and the dealer helps the non-smoking gamblers.
Very impressive. Glad they are thinking about protecting the dealers.
I need an air curtain for my wife.
It's nice to see Aria utilizing this technology, however, when you're applying to be a Dealer, isn't one of the requirements "able and willing to work in a noisy, smoke-filled enviornment"?
This is a good effort, but still falls short. No one deserves to work in an environment that has smoke. The state should ban smoke on the casino floor.
Smokers are drug addicts! Take away the drug and they will cry like babies! Why do we have to put up with other peoples drug habits? Sad just sad.
Sooo Let me get this straight.... This company is installing air curtains to protect the dealers from second hand smoke.. GREAT for thes company for taking a lead in this matter! Now the big question is..... Are the casino companies finally ready to admit that second hand smoke is a danger to there dealers..
This should be very interesting to see what will happen to the lawsuit business..
I think it is now time to leave the low end low class Harrahs properties and go to where there is a bit more concern for the EMPLOYEES !
** but then why would the harrahs FAMILY care about the employees. they need to make money for the 93.7 million dollar salary and bonus of the big boss .... (Yet they wonder why there profits are slipping )
"I need an air curtain for my wife."
Does she fart a lot?
god, just ban smoking in the casino and get it over with.
I am not going to comment this time. The readers seem to be getting it right. I will say that "goingbust" has hit it on the nose. No pun intended. Did you know that airline pilots are allowed to smoke in the cockpit?!?
That's good to know. I am very sensitive to smoke so I avoid places that allow smoking. If the business has a non-smoking section, then I will go to that business. Anyway... I'm glad people are realizing that second, and even third, hand smoke is dangerous.
Although I don't think third hand smoke is a big worry in a casino. Third hand smoke is typically for babies who are being held by those who are covered in that nasty poison.
The bigger danger may be from first hand stupid over second hand anything else.
Third hand smoke??? What the heck is that? Sounds like something an attorney invented.
gold1020, what's the deal with your wife needing an air curtain? Is she stinkin' up the bed?
The next big quantum leap in gaming industry preventative healthcare and lifestyle is to let the customer-smokers go upstairs to corporate desks and smoke sitting next to specially equipped executive desks with air handlers, during executive office hours. How's that for fair play, in life (and health).
Here we go again...a business tries to please everyone and the "Born-again-Breathers" yell foul! They have to have a complete smoking ban or nothing at all. The worst part is that they want (and usually get) the right to tell businesses how to operate. What evre happened to the right's of the businesses to operate the way that they will get the most customers? If a casino wants to allow smoking and you don't like it -- don't go there, don't apply for work there and open a smoke free casino of your own! Before you do, check and see just what the numbers in "smoke free" rooms at the casinos are compared to the smoking allowed ones. If non-smokers are the majority they are not showing it there. Way to go MGM!!
I know there a lot of non smokers out there that just hate that those of us that do smoke "violate" their space. I not going to argue the pros and cons of smoking, but just make sure that you are all ready to pick up the tax burden that us smokers pay. Between the federal and state taxes being charged for cigarettes, all you non smokers are going to see your taxes go up to support the programs us smokers now pay for.
TAX EACH CIGARETTE $1.00 AND SOON NO ONE WILL "BITCH"
YA GOT MY VOTE
Please, smoke! It keeps you calm and gambling longer. We need the money!! Let's make a deal. Don't come to my house and smoke and I won't go to your bar and tell you not to. I like the idea of smoke-free corridors. I went to take the baby shopping last weekend and had to push the stroller thorough about 100 feet of casino to get to the forum shops. Pretty nasty stuff. If they're in "flavor country," why do smokers always look so utterly miserable? Oh, and one last thing. Insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage to smokers. Let them die in peace. No need to take the rest of out with the increased premiums.
If second hand smoke is from the tip of the cig, third hand must be out of a smokers lungs. If it's recreational, it's called a "shotgun" but in a lawsuit it's "third hand" smoke.
Wow, it's late.
To the comment about business' should be able to do what they want!!...I think you might want to take that back since insurance companies (health,auto,life, and disability) could choose to drop all people who smoke and drop all family members who breath in second hand smoke!! As you said business' should be able to make their own decisions and profit?
Pennsylvania casinos were opened limiting the smoking area to 25 percent of the floor, with a provision that said if they can show that the smoking area draws more per machine than the non-smoking area, they could increase the smoking area to up to 50 percent of the floor. If non-smokers are such big spenders and so valuable to casinos, why is it every PA. casino offers a smoking area LARGER than 25 percent?
As for you lovely experts who say insurance companies should stop insuring smokers and let them all die, I've got an interesting tidbit for you: obesity related illnesses are surpassing those of smokers; if insurance companies want to save money, they can stop insuring all those buffet-eaters and let THEM die in peace.
I'm also waiting for the first lawsuit for fourth-hand smoke...that's the effect on others when someone suffering from third-hand smoke coughs up a lung on the guy sitting next to him. Ambulance chasers of the world unite!!!
Last time I checked, smoking is stil legal, just like gambling in Nevada and drinking. You cannot ban it any more than you could alcohol, so learn to live with it. It you really want to make an impact, lean on the casinos to ENFORCE the non-smoking areas...then you can have both smokers and non-smokers living in harmony.
Oh, wait...that's right...the smoke-nazis don't WANT to co-exist...they want it their way...period.
Can't wait to get back to Las Vegas, looking for smoke-nazis in the smoking areas of casinos so I can smoke them out.
The problem is when people overeat, it doesn't impact those around them, but when people smoke, people around them are affected.
I think It's impossible to successfully connect the two issues.
In fact, I think it's impossible to defend smoking.
If you are all so worried about breathing in chemicals from second hand sources that cause cancer, stop driving cars and stop filling up at the gas pump. Car exhuast and fumes from distilled gasoline contain dozens of carcinogens but that is rarely published in the US, but there are several articles/studies from the World Health Organization.
Everything causes cancer, because medicine has advanced so far and people are living longer than they should be, cancer gets the majority of the population. Smoking was blown out of proportion because the "smell" bothers non smokers so they have way overreacted. Lots of my family members on my father's side smoked and lived to their late 80s and 90s, nobody smoked on my mothers side and her father had lung cancer.
The stats used for all the anti smoking data are so cherry picked its unbelievable. Bascially if I lived with someone for a few months and they smoked when I was 20 and had a heart attack and died when I was 40. Even though if I was morbidly obese, they would still include the death in there 400,000 deaths a year from tobacco.
Non smokers, go and play at the non smoking tables. They are usually the empty tables during the high traffic time in the casino. Also if you are alone or the majority agrees, some properties will allow you to request the table be a non smoking table and they will put the sign up for you.
With the air filtration systems that the newer casinos have that circulate/filter the entire volume of air in the casino in 5 minutes or less basically elimnates the majority of "2nd hand smoke"
Quit believing everything you read, see, or hear in the media. The media is one heck of a spindoctor when it comes to social policy and agendas. A lot of people with a lot of money and a lot of nothing to do but whine about made up problems walk hand in hand with the government and pretty much mandate that the media report all of this secondhand smoke nonsense as if it is definitively true.
Secondhand smoke (or passive smoke) does not cause lung cancer. Thirdhand smoke is a bunch of BS. My dad smokes, and he smoked in the house, car, everywhere he went. I've always been around it. No, I don't have respiratory problems. Yes, I can run marathons (no joke). I haven't had as much as a slight cold in two years. Oh, and yes, I smoke! Yet, you want to sit here and complain to me about the "effects" of secondhand smoke? Get over yourselves!
I have two graduate degrees and I'm working on a third, so I'm not just some idiot spouting off his opinion. Trust me, I've done the research rather than just listen and believe health fanatics and crybabies.
This one should really get health nazis going: Moderate smoking doesn't even significantly affect a smoker's health!!!
On another note, what "poison" do some of you speak of? The arsenic? There's a lot more arsenic in tap water, yes, a lot more. What about that magic amount of nicotine that gets you "hooked?" That magic amount is mandated/limited by the federal government! It would be better if they had more nicotine. People would smoke less. Without going through a list here, the point is that you can break almost anything we as humans ingest and find ingredients that can be found in cigarettes or any other food. It's just another spindoctor tactic. Okay, really finally, people get "hooked" on cigarettes because the government and media brainwash them into believing just that!
I'm proud not too have joined this god awful circus.
Go ahead anti smokers.. lol get smoking banned in casinos and the next thing you know.. Nevada will be a totally empty state.
I know the left hates las vegas, freedom, gambling and pretty much anything else.. but smoking RUNS the gambling industry.. and nothing you do here is going to stop it.