Smoking can be a very sensitive topic around Macau area casinos. Since smoking laws have become tighter in the administrative district, casinos have been under the spotlight, and they continue to represent the biggest offenders of the new laws.
As reported by Inside Asia Gaming, The Macau Health Bureau has announced casinos have been responsible for 26.4% of all smoking infractions from January 1 to January 30, 2019. In total, that’s 775 smokers were caught around the resorts. The next biggest place to catch people smoking was parks, which had 499 total prosecutions, followed by 330 at the airport.
They’ve also updated the current standings of smoking room requests. Of the 616 total applications received from the 34 area casinos, 562 from 41 have been approved. Those who are good to go are: Sands Macao, The Venetian Macao, Sands Cotai Central, City of Dreams, MGM Macau, Wynn Macau, Wynn Palace, Broadway, Galaxy Macau, StarWorld and Ponte 16.
While the majority of casinos have their smoking lounges approved, it’s still news when another casino gets permission to open their own. MGM Cotai received permission to open their smoking areas in May, and that’s a pretty big deal considering the number of patrons who still want to take a few drags after a couple of hours of betting.
Despite the smoking areas though, casinos remain the biggest offenders to the new law because the Bureau says they simply aren’t adhering to the rules. In June, the Bureau said the Grand Lisboa has become a “black spot,” frequently having customers smoking where they shouldn’t be.
At least though, most of the smokers aren’t the fighting kind. In January, just a week after the smoking ban went into effect, a police officer was attacked by a smoker outside the Galaxy Macau. The officer had reminded him not to smoke, and got fisticuffs as a response. Most of the violators since then, it would appear, have been less troublesome.
