For a year, Nicole Vitola had the same rights as everyone else in New Jersey, including the right to breathe clean air at work.
It took a dangerous respiratory disease to do it, but COVID-19 led to a yearlong ban on smoking in Atlantic City’s casinos.
With the industry trying to fight off a relentless push by workers to end smoking inside the casinos, many dealers and other workers look back on that virus-mandated pause in smoking as an unintended benefit of the pandemic.
“That year was such a blessing,” said Vitola, a dealer at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and a leader of the employee anti-smoking movement.
