LAS VEGAS, April 18 (UPI) -- Anti-smoking advocates say they'll turn to the Americans with Disabilities Act in their effort to get smoking banned in Nevada casinos.
The 20-year-old federal law -- in addition to requiring public buildings and workplaces to be accessible to people with visible disabilities -- also includes protections for people with breathing problems such as asthma and a list of medical conditions exacerbated by secondhand smoke, such as hypertension.
Anti-smoking activists meeting in Las Vegas next month for a strategy conference on making casinos smoke-free say they will assist casino workers and customers in filing ADA complaints over secondhand smoke, the Las Vegas Sun reported Monday.
"Because there's no safe level of secondhand smoke, a business can't reasonably accommodate a disabled person with a breathing problem" unless it prohibits smoking, said Karen Blumenfeld executive director of the New Jersey-based Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy.
Some legal experts say Blumenfeld is wrong to think the ADA requires smoking bans, and such bans have been subject to legal wrangling over the circumstances of an individual's disability within a specific venue in question.
Federal law doesn't demand employers change their business models, only that they make a reasonable effort to accommodate the disabled, said Brian Pedrow, a disabilities attorney in Philadelphia. For casinos long amenable to smokers, a smoking ban would likely be considered unreasonable, although moving a worker to a non-smoking area would probably fit the "reasonable accommodation" requirement under federal law, Pedrow said.
