Casino smoke ban to stay if customers agree
By BOB HOLLIDAY, Winnipeg Sun STAFF REPORTER, Sat, November 25, 2006
Customers will decide if a native-owned gaming lounge in Headingley respects the province’s smoking ban, the chief of the Swan Lake First Nation declared yesterday.
Chief Robert Daniels said the majority of customers have told him they hope the VLT lounge remains smoke-free.
"So far our customers are pleased with non-smoking. We will do what is best for our customers, and the customer is always right," said Daniels, as the band officially opened the site, just outside city limits in the Rural Municipality of Headingley.
The band bought the land in 2000 for $650,000 under a treaty land entitlement and received reserve status from Ottawa in April.
As an urban reserve, the land falls under the federal Indian Act, giving the band the ability to pass and enforce bylaws in a number of areas that would supersede local laws and bylaws, such as the provincial smoking ban.
SMOKING ROOM
The band has passed a bylaw allowing for a smoking room. The bylaw comes into effect Dec. 13, said Daniels. But Daniels said he’s not sure whether the lounge will welcome smokers once the band bylaw takes effect.
The band transferred 40 of its 60 VLTs from Swan Lake to its new gaming lounge, which can be quickly turned into a smoking facility with a non-smoking room.
There are 28 machines in the large room and another 12 in a smaller room off the main entrance to the lounge.
Daniels said the lounge, as well as a 24-hour gas bar on the west end of its 25-acre property, will help the band pay down its debt. A coffee shop is also planned for the property.
"We have to provide more funding for our youth and elders," said Daniels.
In the past two years the band, located about 150 km southwest of Winnipeg, has paid down almost a third of its $2.8-million debt.
Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc.
