Caesars in Atlantic City, N.J. (FOX 5 NY File Photo) ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Atlantic City casino dealers opposed to smoking indoors are rejecting an idea being floated among state legislators to create designated outdoor smoking areas that employees could opt out of staffing.Pete Naccarelli, a Borgata dealer and a leader of a group of Atlantic City casino workers pushing for a full indoor smoking ban, said Tuesday the opt-out suggestion is not the solution to protecting workers and customers."The so-called opt-out idea only forces workers to risk their health for a paycheck," he said. "It is not a solution at all."A casino worker living paycheck to paycheck should not have to risk their health by working in a smoking area just to get by," he said. "But that's exactly what would happen, and the most vulnerable workers would suffer most.
Legislators should recognize the problematic scenario this would create and reject this half-baked idea."Last week dealers said that creating true outdoor smoking areas "could be a workable solution as long as no worker is exposed to secondhand smoke."But having any casino workers assigned to those areas — or even having to pass through them on their way to other places in the casino — is not acceptable to them.A bill that would ban smoking inside Atlantic City's nine casinos has sat untouched in the Democrat-controlled state Legislature since February.