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Plenty of exceptions to Pa.’s smoking ban

  • Joseph Darius Jaafari
This Tuesday, July 15, 2014 photo shows the tobacco in cigarettes in Philadelphia.

 Matt Rourke / Associated Press

This Tuesday, July 15, 2014 photo shows the tobacco in cigarettes in Philadelphia.

Happy Tuesday, Contexters. This week, we’re going to visit questions that you’ve sent us over the past month. Topics you asked about ranged from today’s discussion — smoking laws in Pa. — to more wonky questions, such as property taxes. If you have a question on a policy, law or just something weird you’ve seen around the state, send us a question through our Listening Post. Just as your teacher likely said to you in the past: There are no dumb questions. I can’t guarantee I won’t give dumb answers, though. (What can I say? I’m a millennial, I live for the retweets.) — Joseph Darius Jaafari, staff writer 
This Tuesday, July 15, 2014 photo shows the tobacco in cigarettes in Philadelphia.

Matt Rourke / Associated Press

A study ties a host of new diseases to smoking, and says an additional 60,000 to 120,000 deaths each year in the United States are probably due to tobacco use. The study by the American Cancer Society and several universities is published in the Thursday, Feb 12, 2015 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. It looks beyond lung cancer, heart disease and other conditions already tied to smoking and adds breast cancer, prostate cancer and even routine infections to the list. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

On Monday last week, Marion from Wilkes-Barre asked us why smoking is allowed in casinos, which she’d seen after visiting one herself. “I went there and to get to the no smoking area, I had to walk through the smoking area. And there isn’t anything separating smoking from [the] no smoking area,” she wrote.

I’m not much of a gambling man (though, my ex used to count cards and almost got us kicked out of a casino in Atlantic City. So, that was fun), but as an out-of-towner I was shocked at the number of places you can still smoke in Harrisburg. Turns out, it’s a Pennsylvania thing. Moreover, you can still smoke in places I wouldn’t have thought you could anymore, primarily bars. If New Orleans — New Orleans, people! — got rid of smoking in bars, surely Pennsylvania did too.

Pshaw. As if.

In 2008, the Pennsylvania legislature passed the Clean Indoor Air Act, which prohibited smoking inside (sorta). There were many exceptions to the law, such as cigar bars, nightclubs and residences (except ones also used as day care centers). Another exception was casino floors.

The act states that at least 25 percent of the gaming floor can be used for a smoking area when it first opens. That can go up to 50 percent, though, based on how much money individual slots make. Every quarter, casinos can analyze the slot revenues, and if the slots in or near a smoking area exceed the average slot intake of the non-smoking area, “the licensed facility may increase the designated smoking area of the gaming floor in proportion to the percentage difference in revenue.”

Basically, if the smokers’ slots make more money than the non-smokers’ slots, the casino can request to expand the smoking area to even out the playing field.

The state Gaming Control Board makes the final determination on those casino requests.

How the casinos keep smoke from drifting from one part of the casino to another is completely up to them. This was an issue recently, with York’s Galleria Mall opening a casino and proposing that 50 percent of the gaming floor be used for smoking. The casino’s owner, Penn National Gaming, said it would be sure to use an air filtration system.

But why is smoking indoors still a thing? Even as a casual (read: drunk) smoker, myself, this perplexed me. The health consequences of secondhand smoke are well known, and there is plenty more research backing up other effects of secondhand smoke, including stress, lack of sleep and anxiety.

Turns out that in 2008, legislators could not see eye to eye on health issues. Many cited consumer demand for keeping smoking indoors. A conference committee assembled to discuss the law, and what we have now is a kind of best-of-both

-worlds compromise, former State Rep. Ron Miller, told the York Daily Record last year.

“The conferees were not willing to risk not passing a ban on smoking in most public places so casinos were given a lesser restriction of requiring designated areas for smoking,” said Miller, who sat on the committee. “And with that Pennsylvania finally achieved a good law for smoking in public places. Not perfect but much better than nothing.”

Hope that answers your question, Marion. If you have questions like hers, send them our way using our Listening Post here. — Joseph Darius Jaafari

Best of the rest

Van Jones

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

REFORM Alliance CEO Van Jones speaks at a gathering to push for drastic changes to Pennsylvania’s probation system, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, April 2, 2019. Pa. House Democratic Whip Jordan Harris on Tuesday announced he will soon introduce a bill designed to result in fewer people on parole and for shorter periods of time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

  • A push for probation reform, but is there a will? A poll conducted by CNN commentator and REFORM Alliance CEO Van Jones found that two-thirds of Pa. residents favor probation reform. His organization has been focusing on Pa. representatives to pass bipartisan packages that would among other things, limit the time people are on probation for no more than five years for a felony (currently there is no maximum). An interview between the Pennsylvania Capital-Star and Van Jones shows that there might be a way to pass reform bills, but there needs to be political will.

  • An unusual save from a DA: In an already tense lead up to a trial, Michael Horvath, accused of murdering Holly Grim in 2013, is getting a new lawyer after multiple people — including the judge and even the district attorney — felt that his defense was inadequate. Grim’s murder is one of the most closely followed murders in recent history in Lower Macungie Township. Horvath’s trial will start in less than two months.

  • A history of Philly, told by the Census: In 1790, Philly’s first Census counted 28,522 residents. Since then, the questions asked and how people get counted has come a long way; In 1840, the Census asked families to count “idiotic” household members (I wish I could’ve answered that) to 1900 where it asked Indians if they were living in polygamy (I also wish I could’ve answered that). But the Census also tells a history of how immigrants helped make Philly one of the strongest and most productive cities on the coast.

  • Teaching doesn’t pay enough: “Too many early child care and education teachers in Pennsylvania earn low wages and live in poverty, while child care remains costly for families, according to research released last week.” That’s the lead of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about research from U.C. Berkeley and the Economic Policy Institute. Among many shocking figures, there’s this: “The poverty rate for early educators in Pennsylvania is 17.6%, compared with 9.2% of Pennsylvania workers in general.”

  • A win for Garden State Equality: New Jersey students will begin learning about LGBTQ history in their classes, after Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that required schools to include queer-related instructions in lesson planning. Studies show that teaching students about LGBTQ history has had a dramatic effect on lowering teen suicides, yet far-right religious groups, such as the anti-gay Family Policy Alliance, gathered 7,000 signatures opposing the instruction, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. New Jersey’s program models similar teaching structures in California, Colorado and Illinois.

  • RIP Tony May: The highly respected political strategist, journalist, columnist and spokesman for Gov. Bob Casey passed away Monday in Harrisburg at the age of 77. PennLive’s Joyce M. Davis wrote: “Tony May was a Pennsylvania legend, a consummate professional a true intellect with a kind and generous spirit. That’s how Charlie Gerow, one of May’s closest friends and political sparring partner, remembers him.”


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