Sweeney made this announcement on the same day that anti-smoking campaigners held a news conference urging New Jersey’s lame-duck legislature to pass the bill. While smoking is banned in most indoor locations, Atlantic City’s casinos remain exempt.
Earlier this month, Democratic Governor Phil Murphy said he will sign the measure if it receives approval from lawmakers, but Sweeney — speaking before an appearance at a ground-breaking ceremony for a supermarket in Atlantic City — gave no assurances as to when this may happen.
“We haven’t even started to talk about it, really, in any deep dialogue,” Sweeney said. “The Governor, myself and the (Assembly) speaker have to get together and decide which bills we’re going to move forward.
“I don’t know what the lame duck’s going to look like. The legislature and the Governor all have to be in agreement. So, we’ll see.”
This news comes to the dismay of many anti-smoking advocates who had hoped a ban instituted by Murphy in response to Covid would herald a more permanent measure. But after it expired in April, casinos returned to being exempt.
Doubly disheartening is that this latest announcement was made during the ‘Great American Smokeout’, an annual event founded by the American Cancer Society (ACS) which encourages people across the country to stop smoking.
A smoking ban in New Jersey would also appear to have widespread support, at least according to an ACS poll that revealed residents favour the resolution by a margin of greater than two-to-one.
