On September 14, MGM Resorts
International
announced
that the Park MGM/NoMad hotel and
casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, would be reopening from the pandemic shutdown
on September 30. A subhead to this press release noted that, upon opening, Park
MGM (and the boutique property, NoMad, located on Park MGM’s top floors) would
be the Las Vegas Strip’s only smoke-free casino property.
Anyone who has visited Las Vegas casinos and dodged smokers on the casino floor
likely realizes this is big news. According to Anton Nikodemus, president of
MGM Resorts’ Las Vegas portfolio, the decision to make Park MGM/NoMad smoke-free
is due to “recurring guest demand for a fully non-smoking casino resort on the
Strip.”
In the United States, there isn’t a nationwide federal smoking ban in
workplaces and public places. Smoking laws vary widely throughout the country.
According to the American Lung
Association,
28 states and the District of Columbia have passed comprehensive smoke-free
laws; Nevada is not among them. Nevada’s Clean Indoor Air
Act,
passed in 2006 and updated in 2011 and 2019, prohibits smoking in workplaces —
but gaming floors, stand-alone bars, taverns, and saloons where minors are
prohibited or that don’t offer food service are exempt.
Smoking on casino floors has long been a contentious and concerning issue in
Vegas. Research conducted in 2017 indicated 75 percent of people favored
smoke-free casinos.
Traveler
forums
are filled with comments and concerns related to smoking, but patrons aren’t the
only ones impacted by secondhand smoke. Casino employees are exposed to
hazardous levels of toxic secondhand smoke at work, including tobacco-specific
carcinogens that increase in the body over the course of a single shift,
according to a federal
report from the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
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MGM’s move to go smoke-free may be framed as a response to consumer requests,
yet its implications within the wider COVID-19
pandemic are important
to consider. In fact, that’s how the news at Park MGM was announced. Within the
details of its reopening procedure, the smoking ban was woven into the
property’s health and safety precautions related to COVID-19.
Image credit: MGM Resorts
Smoking and the exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to coughing, which can
spread infection through droplets that land on people or solid surfaces.
Additionally, the very act of smoking in a casino setting — in which people
touch their mouth and/or nose and then touch cards, chips, tables, and/or slot
machines — increases the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
“While secondhand smoke is certainly unhealthy, the pandemic has raised other
health concerns,” said Michael Kipness, a Vegas resident and founder of
Wizard Race and Sports. “Slot machines average about 600 pulls per hour. If
the average person plays $20 before getting up, that's 30 people's hands
touching the machine per hour.”
Park MGM/NoMad is the first property to ban smoking outright, but it’s not the
first to make modifications during the reopening process in Las Vegas. According
to an article published July 15 by the Las Vegas
Review-Journal,
several Vegas properties have updated their health policies related to smoking.
These include everything from conditions under which patrons can smoke at table
games to requiring them to wear their masks when not smoking.
“The trend nationally has been moving away from smoke-filled restaurants and
bars, and casinos are one of the last hold-outs,” said Alex Miller, founder
and CEO of UpgradedPoints.com — a travel-related site that provides
analysis, data and reviews for travelers.
The trend is already catching on. The Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition is
using this opportunity to advocate for all of the state’s casinos to go
smoke-free
— calling Park MGM “a
trendsetter,”
but noting that this should be the “new
standard.”
Within days of MGM’s announcement, nearby resort the Cosmopolitan banned
smoking
in its public walkways and corridors.
Nationwide, a wide range of restaurants, bars, and hospitality and gaming
establishments are reopening as smoke-free environments. The American
Nonsmokers’ Right Foundation has been keeping an ongoing
list of the hundreds
of businesses, specifically noting that sovereign Tribes have led this movement.
As Miller points out: “It’s no secret most hospitality venues have been going
smoke-free for years; so, casinos are simply catching up to what their hotel,
restaurant and entertainment counterparts have already done.”
Perhaps these small steps in curbing casinos’ smoking culture in the wake of
COVID-19 may be the nudge the industry needs to prioritize people’s health and
eliminate — or at least seriously curtail — smoking on the casino floor.
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JoAnna Haugen is a writer, speaker and solutions advocate who has worked in the travel and tourism industry for her entire career. She is also the founder of Rooted — a solutions platform at the intersection of sustainable tourism, social impact and storytelling. A returned US Peace Corps volunteer, international election observer and intrepid traveler, JoAnna helps tourism professionals decolonize travel and support sustainability using strategic communication skills.
Published Nov 2, 2020 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET