Residents have already started voicing their concerns about the City of Davenport's plan to buy the Rhythm City Casino, from the price tag to the plans for the new casino. Now they're voicing concerns on whether to allow smoking in the new casino or not.
Now that the city is planning to move the casino, non-smokers say this is the time to change how things are done.
"Do the sensible thing and put a ban on this smoking in casinos," QC Resident Dan Dugan says.
Dugan says he's all for the city's new casino plan, but is forming a coalition to raise awareness against smoking in rhythm city for better public health, called "Stop Smoke On The Boat QC."
"It's a free country, you can smoke if you want to, but you shouldn't be able to smoke in a public place where it endangers the health of innocent people and unborn children," he says.
Dugan has personal reasons too. He lost both his parents to emphysema, and his son is in a fight with lung cancer, all thanks to smoking.
"They're gone, I watched my mother suffer from it, she couldn't breath, she was on oxygen for the last few years of her life," he says.
The casino has a non-smoking section inside, but Dugan says it's only a small section of the third floor and isn't enclosed, so surrounding smoke is all over.
"You smell it and half the people, or more than half you can't find a slot machine to sit down, there's somebody to the left or right of you that's going up your nose," he says.
Whether or not there will be smoking will ultimately be decided by non-profit the city will set up to run the casino. Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba says they've done their research, visiting a dozen Midwestern casinos in the last five years.
"Dubuque's casino is what they call a ‘greenhouse casino,'" he says, "They allow smoking. Why can they do that? Because they have a very sophisticated six filter system to clean and purify the air."
But Dugan says it's an issue the city should decide now, before buying the casino for $46 million on the promise of future casino revenue, which could go down if smoking is banned.
"They need to consider, which road are they going to take?" Dugan says, "Are they going to still allow smoking recklessly as it's been in the past, or are they going to stop it, and if they do then consider the revenues and what the value of the boat is they're buying."
"We want this thing to work and work professionally and right and be responsible to the citizens of the City of Davenport," Mayor Gluba says.
