I am really wondering whether the South Beach Casino in Scanterbury, which opened in 2005, will prohibit smoking. Supposedly there is an agreement between the Provincial Government and the management of the casino to ban smoking within the casino soon. The deal sopposedly is that they will be allowed to set up an additional three hundred one armed bandits in exchange for going smoke-free.
There is an article on cbc.ca stating the smoking ban should come in effect immediately. This was in August of 2007! This didn’t happen. The article also states that the smoking ban would be instituted before the extra 300 slots are installed. Well let’s see what happens. 🙂
I actuall don’t believe that they will be needing those extra machines, if they introduce a non-smoking environment. Presently, one of the main reasons they are doing so much business is that lots of people are driving up from Winnipeg and other parts of Southern Manitoba. I don’t think that most of those customers will continue to do that should they no longer be allowed to light up while gambling. They will probably just go to one of the casinos in Winnipeg.
So ultimately, instead of doing more business with their 300 new machines, they might end up doing less.
The new machines and non smoking environment are now supposed to be set up by April of 2008. That might be postponed for a month or two, as expanding the existing fascilities is taking longer. But who knows, they might decide to postpone the whole thing indefinitely.
One good thing though will be that the local bars, such as the Sand Bar and the Birchwood will probably be able to do more business, as smokers will no longer have a reason to drive to the Reserve to drink and smoke. They just won’t be able to do it period and might as well have their drinks closer to home.
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