WGM#38 NOV/DEC 2015

烟 消 云 散 Up in smoke
The simple fact of the matter is that,
despite the fact a smoking ban would be
another blow Macau’s casinos could do
without right now, the health of workers
must always come first. Here are a few facts
to consider:
• Second hand smoke has been
found to contain more than 4,000
chemicals of which 69 are known to
cause cancer.
• Most exposure to second hand
smoke takes place either at home or
in the work place.
• Regular exposure to second hand
smoke in these environments can
increase the likelihood of lung cancer
by between 20 and 30 percent.
• A study released in 2010 found that
around 600,000 people die from
the effects of second hand smoke
each year.
In other words, smoking simply can’t
be allowed in any location where staff are
present and unfortunately for operators that
includes VIP rooms.
But smoking lounges are a different
matter altogether. For starters, there are no
staff permanently stationed in them, so in
that regard the health risks that come with
directly exposing workers to second hand
smoke don’t apply nearly as much.
More importantly, the idea that banning
smoking completely from casinos removes
the dangers that second hand smoke poses
to non-smokers is misguided – ignoring the
way things work in the real world as opposed
to some imagined fantasy land. So what are
these real world considerations?
Rather than creating an environment
where smokers no longer light up, smokers
in other non-smoking venues have typically
taken to finding new places to smoke with the
most common being bathrooms and outside
entrances. We've seen this on countless
occasions before all around the world.
And given that bathrooms and
entrances are two places that non-smokers
have no choice but to use, this in fact means
the absence of smoking lounges has the
exact opposite effect that it is meant to by
exposing non-smokers to cigarette smoke in
areas they cannot avoid.
This is the real world impact and
suggests that if you really do want to keep
smoke away from non-smokers, the provision
of smoking lounges is surely the best way to
do so.
Of course, this isn’t the only concern
when it comes to smoking lounges. The
Macau Federation of Trade Unions, which
has largely been behind the push for a total
smoking ban, has rightly expressed concern
that smoke from these smoking lounges
can still pollute the air that runs through the
casino floor. Yet this shouldn’t be a difficult
problem to adequately address.
Although any such moves should
be strictly subject to fulfilling strict air
quality control criteria, a good start would
be for the Macau government to allow
smoking lounges that include certain
specified features such as filters that run
independently of the property’s main
filtration systems and multi-door entrances
that prevent smoke from escaping as
customers enter and exit the lounge.
This is not to suggest we take the
concerns of the Health Bureau lightly.
Simply put, smoking kills and no workers
should ever be exposed to second hand
cigarette smoke. In a perfect world, there
would be no such thing as smoking and we
wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
But as it stands, the sale of cigarettes – and
the smoking of them – is legal and as such
it’s difficult to mount a reasonable argument
for preventing people from smoking in
situations where there is no negative impact
upon others.
If it is indeed feasible to safely have
separate smoking lounges that fulfil the
above criteria, then it stands to reason that
the banning of them amounts to little more
than overkill.
Visit our website www.wgm8.com to read and comment on every
article ever published by WGM.