These Workers Are In A ‘Fight For Their Lives’ Against Secondhand Smoke

Casinos are the last indoor workplace in New Jersey where customers can light up all night long. But the dealers aren’t taking it quietly anymore.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. ― It’s an off-season Thursday night at the Borgata casino, and Pete Naccarelli is having a great run at the $15 blackjack table. Only Naccarelli isn’t one of the gamblers. He’s the dealer slinging cards to them. What makes him so lucky tonight? None of the players at his table happens to be smoking.

“All it takes is one,” Naccarelli says on a short break from the blackjack pit.

Case in point: Naccarelli’s co-worker is dealing to two smokers just a few tables over. One man has the courtesy to keep his cigarette off the table and turns his back as he exhales. But the other holds his Marlboro Light beside his cards so that the smoke drifts into the dealer’s eyes. To the player’s left, perched on an otherwise empty chair, is an ashtray holding his cigar. Ash is strewn all over the seat.

Another player takes a break, lights a cig and flips the ashes into a trash can off to the side of the blackjack pit. Naccarelli says this is a no-no.

“You’re supposed to actively be playing a game,” he says, citing the smoking rules.