“In February 2025, it will be 35 years since there has been no smoking on domestic flights… At the time, we were told, what are you doing? Nobody's going to fly. We are going to lose business. You're going to kill an entire industry, and nobody's going to travel by air anymore. And obviously that has not been the case.
“We heard similar stories when we started working in restaurants, trying to make them smoke-free, similarly in bars… Clearly, the misinformation was that everybody who goes to a bar smokes, which is not the case.”
~ Cynthia Hallett ~
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In this episode, I’m joined by Cynthia Hallett, the President and CEO of the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, for an excellent discussion on the current efforts to make casinos across the country smoke-free environments.
Cynthia discussed the progress that has been made (many commercial and tribal casinos went smoke-free of their own volition after the pandemic) and the remaining hurdles in holdout states.
Cynthia and I discussed the consensus belief that a smoking ban would hurt business and why that narrative is flawed (in our opinion, of course).
We also touched on my aversion to cigarette smoke after massive second-hand exposure as a child and how poker provides the roadmap for smoke-free casinos and tangible evidence of what happens when you eliminate smoking.
If you like good conversations, this podcast is a must-listen.
You can find out more about the ANR Foundation at its website: No-Smoke.org
You can follow ANR Foundation on X here
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Episode 31: Making Smoke-Free Casinos a Reality with Cynthia Hallett