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Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 | 3:46 p.m.
Sun Archives
- Strip resort sued over second-hand smoke (10-21-2009)
- CityCenter’s Aria to protect blackjack dealers from smoke (8-21-2009)
- Longtime dealer sues Caesars over second-hand smoke (7-23-2009)
- 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)
Sun Coverage
Attorneys have dropped their lawsuit claiming Caesars Palace workers in Las Vegas are exposed to dangerous second-hand cigarette smoke.
Jay Edelson, an attorney with the Chicago law firm KamberEdelson LLC, said the suit filed July 22 in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas was dismissed last week because of circumstances in which the firm could no longer represent the lead plaintiff, Tomo Stephens.
Edelson said Tuesday the firm plans to file another tobacco smoke suit against Caesars Palace and its parent company, Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas, in behalf of a different plaintiff who has yet to be identified.
"We’ll get our day in court," Edelson said.
In the meantime, KamberEdelson plans to continue pursuing a similar lawsuit filed Oct. 20 against Wynn Las Vegas. Attorneys for Wynn have not yet filed their response to that lawsuit.
In the Caesars Palace case, the suit was dropped just days before the deadline for Harrah’s attorneys to file their response to the allegations. So Harrah’s side of the story was never told in court papers, and the company has declined comment on the litigation.
Stephens said in the initial lawsuit she was a blackjack dealer for about 20 years at Caesars on the Las Vegas Strip and quit her job June 16 on the advice of her doctor.
The federal lawsuit says pre-cancerous cells were found in her stomach and that over the years she was exposed to second-hand smoke causing irritation to her eyes, coughing, sore throat, shortness of breath, dizziness, wheezing or tightness in the chest, headache, nausea and ingestion of cancer-causing chemicals and toxins.
The lawsuit sought to represent as a class all former, current and future Caesars employees exposed to unsafe levels of second-hand smoke.
The lawsuit sought an order requiring Caesars to take "reasonable measures" to protect its employees from second-hand smoke.
Edelson on Tuesday said his firm decided it couldn’t represent Stephens after "outside forces'' interfered with the litigation.
He couldn’t say what the outside forces were.
But Edelson said in the Wynn case, the plaintiff’s attorneys were "deeply disappointed" by Nov. 9 comments by Joseph Carbon, director of the Transport Workers Union Gaming Division (Local 721), that were supportive of Wynn’s efforts to reduce second-hand smoke.
Carbon’s comments were made in the context of the TWU working to sign a collective bargaining agreement with Wynn. The union issued a press release with Carbon's comments after a union leader was listed as the plaintiff in the Wynn smoking lawsuit.
In 2007 elections, the TWU won the right to represent some 1,100 dealers at Caesars Palace and Wynn.
The union is close to signing a contract with Wynn, but remains far apart in talks with Caesars Palace, TWU spokesman Jamie Horwitz said Tuesday.
Transport yourself to the opulent and excessive Roman Empire at Caesars Palace. But the ever-changing Caesars Palace is far from ancient. The hotel and casino is constantly raising the bar for what visitors can expect in a Vegas resort experience.
Caesars Palace features 3,348 rooms and suites in five towers, including the new luxury boutique Nobu Hotel and Restaurant, which opened Feb. 4, 2013, in the totally remodeled Centurian Tower. Caesars features 129,000 square feet of gaming space, including the Strip’s largest poker room and a 250-seat sports book. Other amenities include about two dozen restaurants, a four-level shopping mall, four pools, a spa, Pure and Poetry nightclubs and Pussycat Dolls.
Dining options include restaurants from world-renown chefs Guy Savoy, Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay and, on Feb. 4, 2013, Nobu Matsuhisa.
You never know what characters you’ll run into at Caesars with regular performers like Jerry Seinfeld, Bette Midler, Elton John and maybe even the emperor himself.
Komrad lcdrmandingonamvet,
Dude you need help. LOL
Kamber Edelson This is what happens to you when you are a conservative republican. You get delusional into a false reality. The world and its dimesions, time, space, matter, all should bend over to suit your warped sense of reality.
In other words:
Typically three spatial dimensions (length, width, height), and one temporal dimension (time) are required. Dimensions are independent components of a coordinate grid needed to locate a point in a certain defined "space". For example, on the globe the latitude and longitude are two independent coordinates which together uniquely determine a location. In spacetime, a coordinate grid that spans the 3+1 dimensions locates events (rather than just points in space)
Just plain and simple:
This is what your brain is thinking but thats not reality.
Go Figure .....
Bryant Gumble had lung cancer......and never smoked. This secondhand smoke BS has got to stop. While the smoke may be annoying and cause some folks to cough, there is not one death certificate that says secondhand smoke was the cause of death. If secondhand smoke really killed...all the smokers themselves would be dead. They inhale 1,000 times more smoke than others around.
mandingonamvet.......bro, were you smoking the agent orange or something??
bryant gumble smoked cigars
I personally don't smoke, and and would gladly spray a fire extinguisher in the face of anyone whose second hand smoke I have to smell. Especially when I'm in my car, and their nastiness gets sucked into my vehicle while stuck in traffic.
HOWEVER, all jobs have certain occupational hazards and risks associated with them. Because of my aforementioned stance on second hand smoke, I haven't chosen a career that exposes me to it, such as being a Dealer at a casino! At some point you have to know the dangers involved, and likewise have to make a decision between your health and, well, money.
If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and we will take appropriate action!
They've got no basis that the employees are being harmed.
1) You arent forced to work at those companies, which means you understand and accept the "risks" and
2) The study at CP showed no statistically significant difference between workers in smoking and non-smoking areas.
That would suggest either A) the harm from second hand smoke is overstated and or B) the CP has more than adequate filtration system in place
This is no different than becoming a cop. You know there is the possibility of someone shooting at you, but you take the job anyway for whatever the reason. The same for a casino worker - you know going in that you will be exposed to second hand smoke, yet you take the job for whatever reason. This is just some law office trying to get rich. Its amazing that they are going to find another plantiff after the first had to be let go. Follow the money.
what happenned to bob prices daughter's lawsuit against ceasars for the same thing,or is she "tomo stevens"
Smoking should be banned from all casinos PERIOD!!!
"Smoking should be banned from all casinos PERIOD!!!"
No problem flapsychdoc......just as soon as you buy all the casinos and implement your own rules.
Until then don't patronize casinos.
The bottom line is that casino employees' health is being severely compromised.
Sure, people (sometimes) choose their job but they don't choose to breathe.
Go to YouTube and watch "CASINO LUNG CANCER."
I was in your town and went to the National Finals Rodeo. I think I have lip cancer from second hand chew. Who should I call?
Snuff is a finely ground or shredded tobacco that is either sniffed through the nose or placed between the cheek and gum. Chewing tobacco is used by putting a wad of tobacco inside the cheek.
Chewing tobacco and snuff contain 28 cancer--causing agents.
Smokeless tobacco users have an increased risk of developing cancer of the oral cavity.
Several national organizations offer information about the health risks of smokeless tobacco and how to quit.
cancer.gov
What causes brain cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, etc.?
Some people get cancer and some don't. Even the sun causes cancer. Cancer is an unfortunate part of life.
With this thinking, every outdoor worker should be able to sue for sun exposure.
I think colon cancer is caused by idiots and their lawyers blowing smoke up our collective a**es.
Smoking is really bad for your health yes, BUT.. smokers have rights too...
As a ex-smoker and in and around the casinos I merely move to another area. But give me a break. YOU KNOW EXACTLY what you're getting into in accepting a job on the game floor.Taking smoking out of the LAS VEGAS casinos will be near impossible.Not that I'm making it a issue.Sorta like when they attempted to make the strip family friendly....who's bird brain idea was that.
Noindex got it right
Many states have banned smoking in public places. Casinos need to do the same!!!
any person that intentionaly lights a cigarette, or, much worse, a cigar, in a confined public area with others present, may just as well hang a neon sign around his or her neck that says " i am an ignorant, uncaring, piece of sht human, that blindly acts in accordance with the dictates of the big-money interest (e.g., tobacco company) driven legislative process that will wrestle (using money and greedy immoral politicians as tag-team partners) to keep modern day society in the stone age." the fact that they smoke and inflict upon themselves the known consequences without care for either themselves or the people they love or love them, makes it all to easy to understand that they could never have any inclination of empathy toward strangers.
nonewz : Do you feel that the air space which you take up in this world belongs exclusively to only you alone? If so you are a hypocrite of the first order when you simply turn the key of your automobile, or cough without covering your mouth. Really.. give us a break!
and anyone who espouses the notion that one should not apply for a job with "a known occupational hazard" or the notion that the risk was known ahead of time so do not complain now, quite simply demonstrates that they have no conception of how to assess a complicated issue and therefore line up with the simplest of reasoning. in other words, they view the position, which is simple in nature, as making sense, and therefore must be true (i.e., skewed logic). but the truth is is that once upon a time, television commercials advocating the health benefits of cigarette smoking were insitutionalized by american culture (view some of these ads on youtube) but there came a time when no degree of skewed logic could save that institution from the medical facts that eventually confronted it. if the tobacco companies would have tried to contest the medical evidence, they knew that even the least educated within american society would have ridiculed and tuned against them. science and education gradually eradicated the institution, but the tobacco companies did not worry because they knew that smoking in the U.S. and worldwide exists on so many other institutional levels, not the least of which can be found in casinos. it is simply a mattter of time before this particular institution is recognized, and looked back upon with incredulity the way we now look upon the old t.v. commercials extolling the medical benefits of smoking. the aggregate effect of tourists, repeat locals, etc., continuing to blow smoke into the lungs of dealers is a legalized form of intentionally causing harm to another without the person's willing consent. i can think of no other instance where intentionally injuring another person without that person's willing consent is legal. and with good reason. it makes absolutely no sense. we, as a society, allow members of this working class to suffer intentional infliction of injury from others because corporations lobby greedy immoral politicians to resist remedial legislation by rallying support from insensitive, selfish people who care not about themselves, much less others.
great comparison as between the necessity of automobiles in modern society vs. the necessity of smoking in the presence of others in our society. wonderful logic.
nonewz : Your message is lost in a sea of words. Lets make it simple. Smoking is hazardous to our health. Second hand smoke is hazardous to our health. These things are indisputable. What we have here is that a casino worker has chosen this profession knowing fully that he or she are going to be exposed to second hand smoke. You don't take that job with this knowledge, then try to sue your employer after the fact. It is no different than the coal mine worker who knows that he is exposing his or her self to dangerous coal dust, then trying to sue the mining company after the fact. These are choices made by these people with prior awareness of this workplace hazard and possible subsequent consequences.
ok. try and reason with the walls inside of a mountain or inside of a hole in the ground. reason with the walls to stop emitting noxious fumes. then try the same with people, er, i mean pigs (no message lost in that word) that emit the same poison. one would hope that where the possibility of unnecessary injury can be eliminated, people with brains coupled with capacity to care, would make the easy decision. poker players used to be able to act out their indifference to harming others, but now that they are disallowed, they still show up at the tables and take their cigarette breaks away from the poker room, so too would blackjack and crap players (etc.). their need to smoke then and there (at the tables)amounts to no need other than selfish disinterest. if they end up like their cigarettes i would hardly care.
and dont tell me about the "chosen job" because, personally, my occupation of choice is that of a professional basketball player, notwithstanding i have about as much chance of qualifying ability wise as does a snowball enduring in hell. people choose according to many dictates, more having to do with accepting a job as opposed to choosing a job. tell me about choice and a single mother of three children, with no particular professional training whose choice is a 40 hour job as a dealer at the wynn, with smoke, instead of choosing to work 95 hours a week at a fast food location. some choice. on this subject, the great las vegas visionary, steve wynn, has chosen to keep his eyes closed. mr. wynn, you do have an option regarding opening your eyes.
more flawed logic, based upon popular convention, is to point to lawyers as culprits because a suit was filed. who the hell else has the power to effect change and the insulation from retaliation to do something about this symbollic and literal form of cancer? i can imagine a dozen or so wynn employees marching into the wynn executive offices demanding a review of the situation. the next day they would all be out "choosing" another form of employment.
nonewz : Your ideas have led the reader to conclude that the real culprits here are the lawyers leading the blind into an attack with a frivolous lawsuit against Steve Wynn the biggest fish at the moment. Well don't underestimate Wynn's influence with the legislature and a team of lawyers who will put this thing not only to bed, but with no chance to ever surface again.
Well, the "Born Again Breathers" have another story to cry on.I'm 67, smoke about a pack a day and try to be a "friendly smoker", I ask if my smoking bothers the players near me. If it does, I move on. There are areas for non smokers and instead of useing them, they like to complain about the smokers around them. I work in the ER in a hospital. I accept the fact that I may be get some kind of an infection because of my job! It's life people and if you don't like where you are, move on.
"friendly smoker" ... what an idiotic question - does my smoke bother you? you have to ask that question to know the answer. what do you expect people to say? no, of course it doesn't bother me, I'm visiting from mars and we martians are cancer free. friendly smoker, as if there could be such a thing. go ahead and spew your BS wihtin your own brain just as you do your smoke within your own lungs. Steve Wynn, whether he lives 30 more seconds or 30 more years, is not long for the grave and this he understands. just as he understands that he has a choice concerning whether he will bring with him to the grave any number of his employees, whereas he has no choice, the money stays behind. enjoy your span and your money for now mr. wynn.
20% of Americans now smoke how low does it have to go before smokers rights outweigh non smokers rights.
Caesars loses, workers lose,lawyers win!
Electric cigarettes are THE new way to smoke.There is no second hand smoke but the smoker gets nicotine without pissing other people off.
I got one from Crown7-damn thing works great and nobody is offended and I am now NOT killing myself with all the poisons that are in a regular cigarette.
I can't believe Vegas has not caught onto this yet.
Are you people stupid if you know its a place that allows smoking then dont go find somewhere else to go.
cats :
You see it's idiots like nonewz up there who just don't get it...
Smoking is inappropriate behavior and smokers should be punished for there their egregious addiction, period. Feel free to slap the cig out of any of these morons mouths any time they sit next to you @ a casino. Self defense on your part for they are attempting to murder you.