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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
R.I. bill to ban smoking in casinos faces uncertain odds on final day of legislative session
Former Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, a North Providence Democrat, had long Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up Senator V. Susan Sosnowski, a South Kingstown Democrat, said she has been trying to end smoking in casinos since the Public Health and Workplace Safety Act passed 20 years ago. Advertisement 'So this is a big day for Rhode Island and especially for the workers,' Sosnowski said Wednesday. 'I think the casino is going to end up making even more money in the long run, with a decent atmosphere for people to go in and do gaming.' But new Senate Majority Leader Frank A. Ciccone III, a Providence Democrat, introduced a floor amendment that he said would correct an 'error' by removing the name of a specific smoking bar — the Advertisement Senator Samuel W. Bell, a Providence Democrat, questioned the amendment, saying, 'What's to stop this from just creating a large smoking floor — just enclosing it off and just creating a smoking floor that covers a lot of the facility? 'And on Thursday, Representative Teresa A. Tanzi, the Narragansett Democrat who has championed 'We are going to work with labor and the workers to try to understand what this all means,' Tanzi said. 'But my reading is it trades one exemption for a much bigger exemption. I'm really disappointed.' The House had been poised to pass the bill on Friday, but now it's unclear what will happen, she said. 'Nobody wants to walk away from this session without making progress,' Tanzi said. 'But if it's not going to provide protections, then what is it worth?' Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights issued a statement, noting the amendment would allow smoking in an enclosed area 'including, but not limited to, a cigar bar.' The group said, 'This vague language would open the door for casinos to continue forcing employees to work in smoke-filled spaces.' Advertisement Cynthia Hallett, the group's president and CEO, said, 'Time and again, the casino industry and big tobacco have worked to undermine and weaken the rules that protect people from the deadly impact of secondhand smoke. Smoking lounges and cigar bars are smoking sections by another name.' Vanessa Baker, a Lincoln casino worker who is founder and leader of Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) Rhode Island, said she was 'surprised and very, very disappointed' by the floor amendment. She said negotiations had already resulted in postponing the law's implementation for 18 months, and the amendment 'leaves a lot of uncertainty about the protection of the employees.' 'I had more faith in our Rhode Island legislators,' Baker said. 'This is real people's lives on the line. We are in a building with carcinogens. I really thought we had it this year.'A Bally's spokesperson declined to comment Thursday. This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you'd like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
R.I. House momentum for a casino smoking ban is not enough. Unionized workers zero in on Senate.
'Please don't kill us we have families' reads the sign held by one Bally's employee during a State House rally on May 20, 2025. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current) 'NO MORE SMOKE! NO MORE SMOKE!' That was the chant from about 150 casino workers who packed the steps inside the State House Tuesday — their backs to the House chamber, but their voices aimed directly across the rotunda to the Senate floor. It's the fourth such year they've backed the bill by Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, seeking to end the Lincoln and Tiverton casinos' exemption from the state's 2005 indoor smoking ban. 'For the last 20 years, there has been a grave injustice happening in our casinos,' Tanzi told the crowd. 'These are our workers who are there day in, day out — they're doing a service for our state.' Tanzi's proposal has yet to reach the House floor. But unlike previous years, casino workers now have some additional institutional backing. For the first time, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi is a co-sponsor on Tanzi's legislation. Casino workers from 11 separate unions had help making noise from yellow and purple-clad striking Butler Hospital workers who gathered at the State House Tuesday to call on House Democrats meeting for a budget caucus. The Butler workers, who are members of SEIU 1199NE, want lawmakers to prioritize any state funding intended for hospitals for wages and staffing for frontline staff. 'Workers deserve a smoke-free workplace,' Jesse Martin, the executive vice president of SEIU 1199NE, told the crowd. 'People deserve the ability to do their work free from injury, free from these types of concerns.' Across the rotunda, companion legislation sponsored by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski has still yet to be heard by the Senate Committee on Labor and Gaming chaired by the chamber's newest majority leader: Frank Ciccone III. Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, has been a staunch opponent of the ban citing concern that the state would lose millions in revenue should smoking completely disappear from the two casinos. It's the same position shared by the late Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, whom many advocates saw as the main reason smoking still remains inside Rhode Island's casinos. Newly-elected Senate President Valarie Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, has previously stated she personally supports a smoking ban. But she also indicated that she would like to see the standard committee review process play out. But Ciccone is instead looking to reach an agreement between Bally's and the union to expand existing non-smoking areas in the casinos. Ciccone said in an interview Tuesday that talks remain ongoing. 'If anything looks fruitful, we'll set up another meeting with everyone again,' he said in an interview Tuesday. 'Hopefully we'll get closer.' Whether Bally's wants to expand its nonsmoking offerings — or reduce the size of the smoking area — is still being kept under wraps. 'We don't have anything to report right now on the smoking issue,' Bally's spokesperson Patti Doyle said in an email Tuesday. 'Will certainly share updates when/if we do.' Union leaders remain adamant that a compromise won't solve the problem. Matt Dunham, president of Table Game Dealers Laborers Local 711, told Rhode Island Current that even with a larger non-smoking section at the state's two casinos, some workers would still be exposed to smoke. 'A lot of people are going to be left out,' he said in an interview before the rally. Dunham pointed to the 2024 non-smoking expansion at Bally's Lincoln casino, which he said has flaws. 'We still have to walk through cigarettes to get to our own break room,' he said. Ending Bally's smoking ban exemption is also a top priority for the AFL-CIO, which commissioned a poll in February that found nearly 7 in 10 survey respondents 'strongly' or 'somewhat' supported a smoking ban at the state's two casinos. 'We're taking the lead from the workers,' Rhode Island AFL-CIO Political Director Autumn Guillote said in an interview just before the rally. 'And the demand is still 100% from the advocates.' Vanessa Baker, an iGaming supervisor at Bally's Lincoln casino, said staff are constantly 'abused and assaulted' by the second-hand smoke that lingers throughout the two Rhode Island facilities. 'The Rhode Island casinos are allowing the safety and wellbeing of their employees and patrons at risk and showing that their employees are expendable,' Baker said. There was a time when smoking was temporarily banned inside Bally's two Rhode Island casinos: when they first reopened after being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But those rules were eventually lifted by March 2022. 'And all our lives changed for the worse,' Baker said. Philip Farinelli, a floor supervisor at Bally's Twin River Lincoln Casino, told the crowd he has dealt simultaneously with stage 3 neck and head cancer and stage 1 lung cancer, along with a heart attack, because of conditions caused by lingering smoke. 'I'm still here fighting today so I can work in a healthy environment,' he said. 'We all suffer — nose running, eyes itching — it's just every day, it's terrible.' Maegan Tikiryan, a server and bartender at Bally's Lincoln for 14 years, said she regularly deals with congestion and headaches from the casino's smoke. She's said she's seen three coworkers diagnosed with cancer and is worried it could happen to her as she begins to pursue a law degree at UMass Law. 'I don't want the smoke to kill me before I earn my degree,' Tikiryan said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Push to ban smoking at R.I.'s casinos reignites at the State House
Bill DelSanto, a table dealer at Bally's Twin River casino in Lincoln, speaks in favor of banning smoking inside the state's two casinos before the House Committee on Finance on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current) Vanessa Baker brought more than just testimony to the State House basement Thursday. She came armed with inhalers, eye drops, nose spray, and ibuprofen, the medication she relies on to treat the constant symptoms triggered by lingering cigarette smoke at Bally's casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton, where she works as an iGaming supervisor. There was a time she was able to stop using them: when Bally's temporarily banned smoking after it reopened Rhode Island's two casinos which had been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But those rules were lifted by March 2022. 'It took me nine months to get put back on all that medication and I had to take a sick leave of absence for six months to get my lungs back to where I could work,' Baker told the House Committee on Finance. 'There's no safe ventilation that's protecting us.' Which is why she and other employees are once again pushing lawmakers to pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, that would put an end to Bally's two-decade exemption from the state's indoor smoking ban. It's a proposal Tanzi has filed each session since 2021, usually stalling at the committee level, although House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi allowed a symbolic vote to advance the bill last year. He is now one of the 10 cosponsors listed on the latest edition of the bill. 'I hope we will pass some version of the bill this year,' Shekarchi said in an emailed statement Friday. Tanzi's bill has the backing of 55 of the chamber's 75 members. The growing support in the House mirrors overall sentiment in Rhode Island. The AFL-CIO in February released a poll that found nearly 7 in 10 survey respondents 'strongly' or 'somewhat' supported a smoking ban at the state's two casinos. Rep. George Nardone, a Coventry Republican, told the Bally's representative before him Thursday that he continues to 'draw the short straw' in testifying against the proposal. 'It's cruel to make people that are not smokers have to inhale some and work in [that] environment — and they have to stay there based on their job,' he said. 'I think the state made a mistake giving you guys an exemption.' But the company remains firmly opposed to the annual proposal. Craig Sculos, Bally's senior vice president of Rhode Island Regulatory Relations, told the committee that allowing smoking attracts customers coming in from out of state. Massachusetts does not allow smoking at any of its casinos, nor is it allowed at the two tribal-run facilities in Connecticut. 'Should all the regional casinos maintain a non-smoking policy, players are expected to do what players normally do: They'll go to the casino that's closest,' Sculos said. He argued that the smoking sections of the casinos generate more revenue than the non-smoking areas, pointing to slot machines that average $200 more in daily play within the smoking zones. 'You set the floor like you set a menu in your restaurant, you set based upon player demand,' Sculos said. 'If we were to see capacity switch the other way — we would make that change.' Matt Dunham, president of Table Game Dealers Laborers Local 711, refuted the idea that smoking provides Bally's a market advantage over its neighbors. He called Bally's a 'casino of convenience' — central, away from Boston traffic, and allows people as young as 18 to play. 'It is not because people can smoke while they are in the building,' he said. 'And I can all but guarantee that the same customers will still be there, they'll just be smoking outside of the buildings.' Sculos said rules already prohibit patrons from smoking directly at gaming tables and employees can request non-smoking areas as shift availability allows. But those shifts aren't easy to get. Bill DelSanto, a table dealer at Bally's Twin River Casino in Lincoln, told the finance committee those shifts are given based on seniority. Beverage server Karen Gorman also told lawmakers that trying to pick up non-smoking shifts isn't an option at the Tiverton location where she works. 'Even if I had that ability, I would still have to walk through the smoke,' she said. 'I don't want to get cancer. I want to feed my family, I want to buy groceries, I want to pay for my daughter's taekwondo, and for a college education.' Tanzi's bill was held for further study by the committee, as is standard for an initial vetting by a legislative panel. Companion legislation introduced Feb. 7 by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, a South Kingstown Democrat, has yet to be scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Committee on Labor and Gaming. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Miami Herald
08-04-2025
- Miami Herald
Killer of beloved Miami Herald employee is executed in Florida 25 years after her murder
The man who carjacked, sexually assaulted and murdered a beloved Miami Herald employee in 2000 was executed Tuesday evening. Michael Tanzi, 48, died by lethal injection at 6:12 p.m at Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 45 minutes north of Gainesville. He was on Death Row for more than two decades. On April 25, 2000, Acosta, 49, was abducted by Tanzi, a 23-year-old Massachusetts drifter who asked Acosta for a cigarette, punched her and threw her into her Plymouth Voyager van as she was reading a book on her lunch break at the Japanese Rock Garden on Watson Island. Tanzi tied up Acosta in the back of the van and headed to Key West, stealing her money from ATMS along the way after threatening her with a box cutter to get her bank account password. He then sexually assaulted her before strangling and dumping her body in thick mangroves near a public boat ramp in Cudjoe Key, 20 miles north of Key West. A Monroe County judge sentenced Tanzi, who confessed to Acosta's murder, to death in 2003. Hours before his execution, Tanzi was offered a final visit, meal and shower. He requested pork chops, prison officials say. READ MORE: A Herald employee was brutally murdered 25 years ago. Her killer is set to be executed Acosta, a 25-year Herald employee, was a supervisor in the Herald's paper make-up department. Former coworkers said she had a gentle — but firm — hand as she dealt with editors and advertising department representatives pushing her to give them more space on the page. Acosta would often spend her lunch break reading at the garden, which was a short ride over the MacArthur Causeway from the Herald's former headquarters off the Causeway, overlooking Biscayne Bay. But she always returned precisely an hour later, knowing she had deadlines to meet. When she didn't return from her break, several of her co-workers quickly alerted the Herald's executives, who contacted Miami police, and her bank. Their efforts helped detectives arrest Tanzi two days later in Key West as he was about to get into Acosta's van. 'It makes me want to cry,' her coworker and close friend Carolyn Green said. 'That's why I haven't spoken about it. Janet was the nicest person you'd ever want to meet.' Met Jimmy Carter at Habitat for Humanity From a young age, Janet's niece Jennifer Andrew looked up to her aunt's eccentric and artistic personality. She also loved the outdoors, regularly volunteering at Shake-A-Leg, the sailing program in Coconut Grove that works with individuals with disabilities, her family said. Before joining the Herald, Acosta taught English at sea and traveled across the world. Acosta once met former President Jimmy Carter while building a home in Miami with Habitat for Humanity. Andrew said they spread Acosta's ashes — and later her dog Murphy's — in the ocean. 'A fledgling serial killer' Tanzi ambushed Acosta to get to Key West. He had traveled from New York City with two people who dropped Tanzi off in Miami after an argument. Tanzi admitted to police to scouting for a remote location to kill her and came upon the secluded spot in Cudjoe Key. He confessed to murdering Acosta in what police described as a 'matter-of-fact' manner, asking for cigarettes, pizza and a soda and occasionally smiling and laughing. Miami Police Lt. Carlos Alfaro called him 'a cold-blooded animal' at the time of Tanzi's arrest. During the taped confession, Tanzi explained why he killed Acosta: 'If I let her go, I was going to get caught quicker,' he said, the Herald reported. 'I didn't want to get caught. I was having too much fun.' Tanzi also confessed to another murder: the Aug. 11, 1999, killing of 37-year-old mother of two Caroline Holder in Brockton, Mass. Holder was found strangled and stabbed in the throat at a coin laundry, just eight months before Acosta was killed. Tanzi was never charged with Holder's murder. 'What we have here is a fledgling serial killer,' Miami police detective Frank Casanovas told the Herald in 2003.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida to execute killer of newspaper employee by lethal injection
A 48-year-old man is to be executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Tuesday for the 2000 murder of a newspaper employee who was abducted while on her lunch break. Michael Tanzi is scheduled to be put to death at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the murder of Janet Acosta, 49. Tanzi would be the third Death Row inmate to be executed in Florida this year and the 11th in the United States. Tanzi confessed to the murder of Acosta, an employee of the Miami Herald newspaper, and was sentenced to death in 2003. He kidnapped Acosta while she was eating lunch in her van, forced her to withdraw money from ATM machines and sexually assaulted her before strangling her and dumping her body. He also confessed -- but was never charged -- with the murder of another woman, and a police detective described Tanzi to the Miami Herald as a "fledgling serial killer." Tanzi's lawyers have tried to halt his execution arguing that there could be problems with the lethal injection because he is "morbidly obese," but their appeals have been rejected. His execution is one of two scheduled to be carried out in the United States this week. Mikal Mahdi, 42, is to be executed by firing squad in South Carolina on Friday for the 2004 murder of an off-duty police officer. Mahdi would be the second person executed by firing squad in South Carolina this year. The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection. There were 25 executions in the United States last year. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes." Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last week that federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, charged with the December 4 murder in New York of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. cl/des
