Casino staff unions launch signature campaign for full smoking ban

Tang Fong Chan and Choi Kam Fu

Casino staff trade unions have urged the government to further step up the city’s smoking control by implementing a full smoking ban inside all casino indoor areas within the year.
A joint signature campaign is set to be launched by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FOAM) and its affiliated casino staff unions, to collect citizens’ signatures in support of the cause.
“Since the government set a full smoking ban inside other entertainment venues from January 1 this year, all indoor public spaces have prohibited smoking, with casinos being the only exception,” stated director-general of the Macau Gaming Enterprises Staff’s Association, Choi Kam Fu, at a press conference yesterday.
Mr Fu said that this year is the year where the government will review the results of its smoking control measures. Authorities also promised to release a report by the end of this month.
“The report won’t reflect the real situation, because after all, the authorities couldn’t inspect the casinos around the clock or during the peak hours with the largest flows of visitors. They only conducted spot-checks,” he stressed, “but still, we expect it to be released as soon as possible and will see it as a reference.”
Back in 2012 the Macau government launched a smoking ban in most indoor public spaces, while casinos got a discretionary transition period and were allowed to set up smoking zones that could be no larger than half of the public use area in size. From October 6, 2014, casinos prohibited smoking in their mass gaming areas.
Nevertheless, Mr Choi indicated that some casino operators “have shown their indifference to employees’ health by taking irresponsible measures to counter the smoking ban.”
“Even under such easing of regulations, we’ve seen that the casino operators are not really copperating with the government’s determination on a total smoking ban,” Mr Choi stressed. “They took advantage of various legal loopholes that put employees in a smoking environment that’s even worse than before the [partial] smoking control.”
“So far the implementation of the full smoking ban on mass floors has proved ineffective, as within half a month there had already been casinos breaching the law,” he added.
Mr Choi stressed that long periods of exposure to a second-hand smoking environment has caused the workers physical and psychological distress, while their families are also suffering from third-hand tabacco exposure.
“Many studies have proved that second-hand smoking is severely harmful to human health. Except in a complete non-smoking environment, passive smoking can’t be prevented by setting any types of smoking zone,” he emphasized, “thereby a full smoking ban in casinos is the public’s expectation and also a general trend.”
Ms Tang Fong Chan, director-general of the Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM) employees’ union, told the media that she “believes the government is able to achieve the full smoking ban,” since as a “frontline casino worker” she has noticed that “gamblers have got used to the smoking control policy.”
“They would go to the smoking rooms to smoke and come back to our non-smoking gambling tables,” she explained, “and when I told them that they can’t smoke at the table, they wouldn’t be unreasonable and reject [it].”
The signature campaign will firstly be launched at the Border Gate on Friday and extend to all over the city through FOAM’s offices and networks as well as on its websites and Facebook pages. Mr Choi said that the campaign would go on for a week to ten days and they expect to collect ten thousand signatures.
“Casino workers and their families have awaited the total ban on smoking for two years and have put up with the tobacco hazards during the past two years,” he added. “We’ll discuss what measures to take next, depending on the feedback of the campaign.”