ON - Slots gets smoking lounge
By CATHY DOBSON, Sarnia Observer, - Monday, December 18, 2006 Updated @ 9:31:19 AM
Bruce LaPointe is a smoker, so you think he’d be thrilled with the $250,000 building permit Hiawatha Slots has taken out to build an elaborate smoking area.
“It’s going to have walls and a roof and I’m told it’s going to be heated,” said LaPointe, who spends a fair share of time at the government-owned casino.
“What I don’t understand is how the government sets a standard that doesn’t allow independent businesses like the bars and restaurants to have a roof over their smoking areas, but they allow it for their own buildings.
It bothers me a lot when I see there are different rules for the casinos.”
Community health officials who enforce the Smoke-Free Ontario Act that kicked in last spring, say the casinos are within their right.
While restaurants and bars that allow food and beverages in their smoking areas are not permitted to have roofs or walls, any establishment that does not serve food and beverages in their smoking areas can.
“Food and beverage services have different regulations under the Act,” said Kevin Churchill, manager of Lambton County’s health promotion department.
“Of course, the casinos comply with the Act,” said Don Pister, a spokesman for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. “We are a provincial agency and it’s a provincial law. ”
“We are very careful to ensure we work within the Act. We’d probably be the last to get away with anything because we’re part of the province,” Pister said.
But that doesn’t satisfy LaPointe. He wants a level playing field for all Ontario businesses and public places.
He’s a construction worker who has worked at a number of plants in the Chemical Valley. Those companies locate their smoking areas far from buildings in compliance with the Act.
“I’ve had to stand out in the middle of a field to smoke at work because of the laws,” he said. “But Hiawatha is building its smoking area just a few feet from the south entrance.
“This is a double standard.”
Churchill said the Act has different requirements for smoking area locations depending on whether it’s a workplace, a food and beverage business or a public building where food and drink won’t be served in the smoking shelter.
There have been some inquiries like LaPointe’s but not many, Churchill said.
“We get a lot of questions but not a lot of complaints.”
Three part-time enforcement officers do random checks of workplaces and businesses, particularly convenience stores where cigarettes are sold, said Churchill.
“Compliance in Sarnia-Lambton is very high. We’ve had very little ticketing,” he said.
© 2006, Osprey Media
