May 12, 2023 | Contact: ceasesmokingnj@gmail.com
Atlantic City, NJ– Nicole Vitola, a table games dealer and co-leader of Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) New Jersey, released the following statement ahead of Mother’s Day:
“This weekend, as many celebrate and spend time with some of the most important women in their lives, countless mothers, and even pregnant women will show up to their jobs in Atlantic City casinos and be forced to work in dangerous conditions as they breathe secondhand smoke.
“After working in the casinos for 20 years, I know this reality firsthand. I worked in a casino throughout my two pregnancies, and in one horrible incident, was forced to work in a high roller room with six VIPs blowing cigar smoke in my face while I was visibly pregnant. I feared for my own health, and for the health of my unborn child.
“Mothers and pregnant women deserve to go to work every day without having to worry that they won’t live to see their children and grandchildren grow up because of the dangerous effects of smoke. We know that exposure to secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and heart disease, and no ventilation system or partial smoking ban can change this fact.
“This Mother’s Day, casino workers are calling on the New Jersey legislature to pass the long overdue bill to close the casino smoking loophole. New Jersey must finally protect our mothers, grandmothers, pregnant women, and all casino employees – no one should have to choose between their health, or their unborn child’s health, and a paycheck.”
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Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) is a group of thousands of casino dealers and other frontline gaming workers that is fighting to permanently remove smoking from our workplaces. CEASE has chapters working to close the casino smoking loophole in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Kansas.
