“NO MORE SMOKE! NO MORE SMOKE!”
That was the chant from about 150 casino workers who packed the steps inside the State House Tuesday — their backs to the House chamber, but their voices aimed directly across the rotunda to the Senate floor.
It’s the fourth such year they’ve backed the bill by Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, seeking to end the Lincoln and Tiverton casinos’ exemption from the state’s 2005 indoor smoking ban.
“For the last 20 years, there has been a grave injustice happening in our casinos,” Tanzi told the crowd. “These are our workers who are there day in, day out — they’re doing a service for our state.”
Tanzi’s proposal has yet to reach the House floor. But unlike previous years, casino workers now have some additional institutional backing. For the first time, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi is a co-sponsor on Tanzi’s legislation.
Casino workers from 11 separate unions had help making noise from yellow and purple-clad striking Butler Hospital workers who gathered at the State House Tuesday to call on House Democrats meeting for a budget caucus. The Butler workers, who are members of SEIU 1199NE, want lawmakers to prioritize any state funding intended for hospitals for wages and staffing for frontline staff.
“Workers deserve a smoke-free workplace,” Jesse Martin, the executive vice president of SEIU 1199NE, told the crowd. “People deserve the ability to do their work free from injury, free from these types of concerns.”
Across the rotunda, companion legislation sponsored by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski has still yet to be heard by the Senate Committee on Labor and Gaming chaired by the chamber’s newest majority leader: Frank Ciccone III.
Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, has been a staunch opponent of the ban citing concern that the state would lose millions in revenue should smoking completely disappear from the two casinos.
It’s the same position shared by the late Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, whom many advocates saw as the main reason smoking still remains inside Rhode Island’s casinos.
Newly-elected Senate President Valarie Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, has previously stated she personally supports a smoking ban. But she also indicated that she would like to see the standard committee review process play out.
But Ciccone is instead looking to reach an agreement between Bally’s and the union to expand existing non-smoking areas in the casinos. Ciccone said in an interview Tuesday that talks remain ongoing.
“If anything looks fruitful, we’ll set up another meeting with everyone again,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “Hopefully we’ll get closer.”
Whether Bally’s wants to expand its nonsmoking offerings — or reduce the size of the smoking area — is still being kept under wraps.
“We don’t have anything to report right now on the smoking issue,” Bally’s spokesperson Patti Doyle said in an email Tuesday. “Will certainly share updates when/if we do.”
Union leaders remain adamant that a compromise won’t solve the problem.
Matt Dunham, president of Table Game Dealers Laborers Local 711, told Rhode Island Current that even with a larger non-smoking section at the state’s two casinos, some workers would still be exposed to smoke.
“A lot of people are going to be left out,” he said in an interview before the rally.
Dunham pointed to the 2024 non-smoking expansion at Bally’s Lincoln casino, which he said has flaws.
“We still have to walk through cigarettes to get to our own break room,” he said.
Ending Bally’s smoking ban exemption is also a top priority for the AFL-CIO, which commissioned a poll in February that found nearly 7 in 10 survey respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” supported a smoking ban at the state’s two casinos.
“We’re taking the lead from the workers,” Rhode Island AFL-CIO Political Director Autumn Guillote said in an interview just before the rally. “And the demand is still 100% from the advocates.”
Vanessa Baker, an iGaming supervisor at Bally’s Lincoln casino, said staff are constantly “abused and assaulted” by the second-hand smoke that lingers throughout the two Rhode Island facilities.
“The Rhode Island casinos are allowing the safety and well-being of their employees and patrons at risk and showing that their employees are expendable,” Baker said.
There was a time when smoking was temporarily banned inside Bally’s two Rhode Island casinos when they first reopened after being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But those rules were eventually lifted by March 2022.
“And all our lives changed for the worse,” Baker said.
Philip Farinelli, a floor supervisor at Bally’s Twin River Lincoln Casino, told the crowd he has dealt simultaneously with stage 3 neck and head cancer and stage 1 lung cancer, along with a heart attack, because of conditions caused by lingering smoke.
“I’m still here fighting today so I can work in a healthy environment,” he said. “We all suffer — nose running, eyes itching — it’s just every day, it’s terrible.”
Maegan Tikiryan, a server and bartender at Bally’s Lincoln for 14 years, said she regularly deals with congestion and headaches from the casino’s smoke. She’s said she’s seen three coworkers diagnosed with cancer and is worried it could happen to her as she begins to pursue a law degree at UMass Law.
“I don’t want the smoke to kill me before I earn my degree,” Tikiryan said.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
