The House minority bloc reiterated yesterday their concerns over the Saipan casino\u2019s alleged noncompliance with smoking prohibitions, urging authorities to enforce the law.<\/p>\n
In a letter to casino regulators, all nine House minority bloc members reiterated their concern over the secondhand smoke that is \u201caffecting employees and visitors\u201d to the T Galleria, Hard Rock Caf\u00e9, and the Noodle House, which are all near the casino floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2026request that proper authorities enforce the law,\u201d the lawmakers write.<\/p>\n
The letter essentially responds to a letter from casino lawyer Viola Alepuyo to the Commonwealth Casino Commission last week, in which she argued that no law currently exists to ban smoking in casinos. Rather, she said, the casino is in fact an \u201cenclosed area,\u201d and if gaming floors at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino can be exempted from smoking bans, then Best Sunshine must also be exempted.<\/p>\n
In her letter, Alepuyo said there have been no citations to the casino since health officials inspected it. However, the lawmakers said the absence of a citation is not the same as full compliance.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers said the casino \u201cconfused\u201d the use of discretion on the part of health and law officials as compliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cA warning is not an invitation to continue committing the same offense. It is an invitation to correct the wrong and make amends,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Casino vs live training facility<\/strong><\/p>\n Alepuyo wrote last week that the Smoke Free Air Act does not regulate smoking in \u201cenclosed gaming areas of casino establishments.\u201d<\/p>\n She also told reporters last week\u2014citing public law definitions of \u201cenclosed areas\u201d and the law that exempts gaming floors from the smoking ban\u2014that her client, Best Sunshine, is in full compliance with the law.<\/p>\n \u201cThe law in my mind is clear,\u201d she had said.<\/p>\n The lawmakers yesterday said local law does not show an exception for enclosed gaming area of a \u201clive training facility.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeither the English language advertisements in the local newspapers, nor the invitations for the grand opening on Nov. 27\u2026expressly mention a \u2018casino,\u2019\u201d the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n The lawmakers said the legislative history regarding amendments to the Smoke Free Air Act reflected widespread support for increasing the number of hotel rooms that could be designated for smoking to accommodate more tourists. Hard Rock Caf\u00e9 or the T Galleria are not private rooms, the lawmakers wrote. They are businesses open to the public.<\/p>\n The lawmakers said the amendments to the Smoke Free Air Act centered on the personal choice of visitors to smoke in the privacy of their own rooms or not. The Smoke Free Air Act, though, was enacted to protect the non-smoking public from the risks of secondhand smoke \u201cin public places,\u201d the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n The lawmakers said that the text of the smoking law amendment, Public Law 17\u201431, states, \u201cSmoke from designated smoking rooms shall not infiltrate into areas where smoking is prohibited.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven if the smoking is done in a legally designated area, the smoke still cannot infiltrate another area where smoking is prohibited,\u201d the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The House minority bloc reiterated yesterday their concerns over the Saipan casino\u2019s alleged noncompliance with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[988,3126,55,8540],"class_list":["post-216009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-best-sunshine","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission","tag-health-2","tag-noodle-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}