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ABOWITZ: Should Vegas still be smoking? 

When I moved here I considered smoking in casinos anachronistic and have advanced to viewing it as a necessary evil. I remember an interview with the late Joe Strummer (of Clash fame) who told me that allowing smoking inside casinos was his favorite part of Las Vegas.

Viewing smokers in a casino now reads to me as a visible sign that the rules that apply elsewhere do not apply in Las Vegas. . . .

I do not have an opinion here. I don't mean that as a cop-out. I simply do not know nearly enough about the science and health risks of second-hand smoke. I am a nonsmoker. Yet there is a part of me that feels Las Vegas would lose yet one more bit of our unique formula of freedoms and permissiveness that allows people to do things profoundly unhealthy for them during their Vegas vacation. I have always--without evidence, I admit--- thought that many of the smokers I see in resorts are really Vegas smokers, who don't actually have a cigarette habit back home but indulge themselves in all ways while visiting Sin City.

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