The push to clear the air inside Rhode Island’s two casinos won’t ignite at the shareholder level this year.
Enough Bally’s Corporation shareholders had backed a proposal to study a smoking ban from Michigan-based Trinity Health at the company’s 2024 annual meeting to qualify for resubmission at this year’s gathering tentatively scheduled for May 15. But Cathy Rowan, Trinity’s director of socially responsible investments, told Rhode Island Current that the nonprofit chose not to refile.
She attributed the decision to last year’s buyout of Bally’s by the New York hedge fund owned by Soo Kim, the Providence-based casino giant’s largest shareholder and chairman of its Board of Directors.
Asked how the new structure would impact a new proposal to study a potential smoking ban, Rowan said it would “be difficult to achieve a vote result similar to what the resolution received last year.”
Trinity will still submit shareholder resolutions to go smoke-free with Boyd Gaming, Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts and Penn Entertainment.
Lauren Westerfield, a spokesperson for Bally’s corporate office, acknowledged a request for comment with an email saying that the company plans to release a proxy statement after April 4.
That leaves advocates’ ongoing battle to end the loophole that exempts the state’s two casinos from an indoor smoking ban solely with the General Assembly.
“We’ve always taken the position that this was going to take a legislative fix,” Rhode Island AFL-CIO president Patrick Crowley said in an interview. “And we’re trying to let as many legislators know where we stand.”
Crowley is also betting big that public opinion will make a difference. The AFL-CIO in February released a poll that found nearly 7 in 10 survey respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” supported a smoking ban at the state’s two casinos.
And momentum appears to be growing in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, where legislation filed by Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, has been co-sponsored by Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi.
“I’m glad our legislature seems to be moving in the right direction,” Tanzi said in an interview. “I do believe that this will in fact pass on the House side this year.”
Matt Dunham, president of Providence-based Table Game Dealers Laborers Local 711, said support in the House was always going to be given after Shekarchi allowed a symbolic committee vote at the end of last year’s legislative session.
“It’s always come down to the Senate,” he said. “They’ve always been the ones we couldn’t get.”
Companion legislation sponsored by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, a South Kingstown Democrat, was initially referred to the Senate Committee on Finance but has since been transferred to the chamber’s Committee on Labor and Gaming, which is chaired by Sen. Frank Ciccone, a Providence Democrat who has been a staunch opponent against banning smoking.
Ciccone said in a recent interview that he met with union leaders and anti-smoking advocates on Feb. 26 to try and come up with a compromise to expand existing non-smoking areas in the casinos.
“We’re still working on it,” Ciccone said.
Crowley called the meeting “cordial.”
“And we agreed to continue talking and see where this goes over the next couple of weeks and months of the session,” Crowley said.
Ciccone said he understands advocates’ calls to end Bally’s exemption from the state’s indoor smoking ban, but argued that allowing smoking gives Rhode Island’s casinos a competitive edge over neighboring states with more dining and shopping options.
“If you go to Lincoln, why are the majority of the cars in the parking lot from out of state?” he said. “Is it because they like us? Or do they come to us because they smoke?”
Ciccone said a smoking ban could cut Bally’s bottom line by upward of 10%, which would result in 126 layoffs in Lincoln and Tiverton — projections company spokesperson Patti Doyle said were accurate.
“We intend to present information about the revenue and jobs impact of a potential smoking ban at our two Rhode Island venues when we testify on legislation introduced to do just that,” Doyle said in an emailed statement.
Tanzi and Susnowski’s bills have yet to be scheduled for a hearing. Tanzi said she expects her bill to go before the House Committee on Finance after legislators wrap up their ongoing budget hearings.
Dunham said he doesn’t believe the company’s argument over job cuts is valid.
“They run a barebones operation already,” he said. “The problem I see in the casino is they don’t hire enough.”
Bally’s has 40 job postings for its Lincoln casino and 18 at its Tiverton location as of Monday, according to its website.
As state lawmakers prepare for debate to return to Smith Hill, Dunham said the union plans to hold rallies and encourage workers and advocates to write to their legislators.
“We’re going to do the same thing we’ve always been doing,” he said.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
