Just about 3 weeks ago the Atlantic City Council voted to ban smoking in 75 percent of the casino floor in each of the city's casinos, but today a Senate committee passed a bill that will ban all smoking in the casinos.

The Senator for Middlesex County sponsored the bill to ban smoking, who is also head of the Senate Health Committee, and he said the new ordinance forced him to push this bill because the ordinance was going to force the casinos to spend money erecting these smoke chambers with very expensive but ineffective air filtration systems for their smokers, with the knowledge that in 2 or 3 years they are going to have to remove them and go smoke free anyway.

Tests have proven that even with properly working air filtration second hand smoke can stay in the air for several hours. This poses a risk to the players, the dealers, cocktail waitresses and the cleaning crew.

The president of the Casino Association of New Jersey said that the compromise agreed upon 3 weeks ago was a fir deal that would allow the casinos to continue to compete with the Pennsylvania and Connecticut casinos, and urged the Senators to stick to the agreed deal of allowing smoking in a closed off areas of the casino.