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Mountaineer to open smoking patio as Hancock County smoking ban began Wednesday
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CHESTER, W. Va.
A smoking pavilion opened Wednesday as Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort adapts to a smoking ban.
Its opening followed a ruling from the Hancock County Board of Health last summer, and smoking patios have increased in popularity at gaming facilities in the region.
Several facilities in Ohio have smoking patios with video lottery terminals or slots, such as Austintown’s Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
Penn National Gaming Inc. operates racinos in Dayton and Austintown and casinos in Columbus and Toledo.
“All four facilities were built with smoking patios so all we had to do was some minor construction work and get permission to put the machines there,” said Bob Tenenbaum, spokesperson for Penn National. “For us, it was a question of customer demand.”
Tenenbaum added: “They made it clear that they wanted machines outside while they continued to smoke outside.”
Former boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini was part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the patio at 10 a.m. Wednesday. He was also a part of the opening ceremony of Austintown’s Hollywood Gaming.
The 9,800-square-foot smoking pavilion will have more than 200 slot machines, with a mix of new and popular slot games, and six blackjack tables. It will have a separate entrance from the casino and two entrances inside the casino.
Chris Kern, Mountaineer general manager, called the pavilion the “best of both worlds” for frequent players. “We wanted our guests that have been coming here forever to play what they like” on the pavilion, he said.
The slots on the patio range from one cent to $5 machines. Table-game offerings could be altered after some time based on demand, Kern said.
He also acknowledged the smoking patios in Ohio, but said this is more substantial, citng its 9,800 square feet. “We have a whole room dedicated to” smoking patrons “... which is obviously a much better offering than any of our competition in Ohio,” Kern said.
Asked if employees can request not to work on the pavilion, Kern said that “hasn’t come up for discussion” because the facility had been a smoking enviornment. “There are several departments within the building that have the ability to not work out here in this area,” he noted.
Not every smoking patio has been a smooth process. The Cincinnati Health Department has received multiple anonymous complaints about the smoking patio, known as The Parlor, for the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati.
“Initially they came to us and asked us what we thought and we told them we didn’t think it was feasible,” said Larry Florea, supervising sanitarian of the Cincinnati Health Department. “To us, it doesn’t meet code.”
The Horseshoe has appealed the violation.
A statement from Rock Ohio Ventures, which operates Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati and Thistledown Racino in Cleveland, said “both patios do continue to be received very well by our guests. Thistledown’s Slush patio has been so successful that we quadrupled its size last year by adding 100 video lottery terminals.”