Agua Caliente Palm Springs Casino allows smoking again

After a three-plus year hiatus, smokers can again light up a cigarette while trying their luck on the slots at the Agua Caliente Casino Palm Springs.

A spokesperson for the casinos confirmed to The Desert Sun that the decision was recently made to open up one of the three Agua Caliente casinos to smoking in response to “a substantial number of requests.” Smoking is limited to the Palm Springs property, while the tribe’s Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage casinos remain non-smoking. The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up question about the different rules.

An employee at the casino further explained Monday that while cigarette smoking and vaping are allowed on the casino floor, it is not allowed at table games or in the dining spaces, sports bar or Cascade Lounge. Signs posted at the entrance to the casino state that pipe and cigar smoking remains disallowed.

While California state law has banned smoking in casinos and other indoor spaces since 1998, tribes can continue to allow it at their casinos because they are sovereign nations that are exempt from the smoking ban.

For years, the casinos were something of a last public refuge for smokers in the state. But the rule change at the Palm Springs bucks a trend that has seen several casinos around the Coachella Valley go smoke-free in recent years, including the three Agua Caliente properties. Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio and the Augustine Casino in Coachella also disallowed smoking when they reopened during the pandemic.

Some regulars decrying decision

On recent visits to the Palm Springs casino, the new rule was being embraced by several customers who were smoking while seated at the slots. However, it's also proven controversial among several other regulars, including some who have taken to social media to criticize the decision.

Among them is Palm Springs resident Tim Sigle, who wrote a post on a popular local Facebook page encouraging people to complain to casino staff about the return of smoking. The commenters on the post were a mix of smoking supporters and opponents. One said he had grown tired of having to walk out the door and around the corner like a criminal and would be returning to the casino now that he can smoke.

Sigle, meanwhile, said he is so upset by the decision to again allow smoking that he is now taking his business all the way to Indio.

“It’s kind of ridiculous that they think it would bring in more players or more money, I don’t see how,” he said. “I used to go in at least once in at least once a week to the Palm Springs one… but I’d rather drive all the way out to Fantasy Springs than deal with the cigarette smoke.”

Sigle said he thinks it is particularly ridiculous that the casino is again allowing smoking given that it just opened a 73,000-square-foot spa at the new tribal museum located across the street from the casino in April. The website for The Spa at Sec-he touts that visitors can soak in mineral spring water that “has proven benefits when it comes to both physical and emotional wellness.”

John Mannion said he has been going to the casino two to three times a week since moving to Palm Springs from San Diego in March. For him, the biggest attraction has always been the steakhouse, which is right off the casino floor and which he considers to be the best in the city. But while he would often stop to gamble for an hour before or after his meal, he says doing so hasn’t held much appeal since the casino greenlit smoking.

“We don’t do that now, it’s just in and out,” he said. “Even in the steakhouse you can smell the smoke, which doesn’t make eating a $60 steak very enjoyable.”

Sigle and Mannion said they are particularly concerned about the impact the decision is having on the casino’s employees, some of whom Mannion says told him they only learned that smoking would again be allowed on the day it was reintroduced.

“Their health should matter,” Sigle said. “You’re putting them in there for their eight hour shifts right in all that cigarette smoke. I think that’s cruel.”

Beyond the second-hand smoke and resulting smell, Mannion said the cigarette smoking makes for a less clean atmosphere as there are now ashtrays all over the place and you might sit down at a machine and find yourself looking at a dirty one.

The decision to reallow smoking could also have impacts on those who go to the casino for other reasons beyond gambling and dining. The producer of the Jazzville jazz series held inside the casino’s non-smoking Cascade Lounge responded to Sigle’s post asking people not to boycott Jazzville, noting that the series is independent and that’s its “just a 15-second walk” from the casino entrance to the lounge.

But while the tribe has put its money on smoking, Sigle wonders how that bet could possibly pay off. Still, it's one the tribe is not alone in making. The Spotlight 29 casino allows smoking, while Casino Morongo limits it to a room containing about 100 slot machines.

In 2022, the California Department of Public Health reported that 6.2% of adults in the state reported currently smoking, a number the agency said was lower than ever before. Meanwhile, 4.3% reported vaping, a number that has remained relatively stable since the agency began tracking it in 2017.

“They're thinking like they're in Las Vegas or something and they're not,” Sigle said. “In California there are less smokers than ever before. Why would you try to cater to a minimum amount of people?"