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Beautiful people drift across the television screen in sexy black dresses or suit coats. They pass others in similar attire, all laughing, toasting with champagne, relishing their dining experience, enjoying the casino games and winning. It looks lovely, but unfortunately there is little truth in that advertising. Most of the patrons are really dressed in jeans or sweats, and the average age is often somewhere in the senior citizen discount range.
The biggest thing they leave out, though, is the gray haze from the cigarette smoke clinging to everything. You wouldn't really want to wear anything to a casino that you'd want to wear again soon, because everything from the coat on down will need to be washed (and dry cleaned if anyone actually dressed like the commercials) before you can wear it again.
We took a little vacation this summer to the Quinault Lodge near Ocean Shores and had a nice time, but we decided to eat in town a couple times just to get away from the smoke, and we probably wouldn't go back because of it. To my knowledge the only casino in the area with a completely separate non-smoking building is the Muckleshoot, but even there I believe the restaurants are all in the smoking area. (Please tell me I'm wrong!) Some casinos have a non-smoking area, but it is connected to the smoking area so you still end up smelling like an ashtray when you leave.
I would love to see the casinos be more representative of the people in Washington, where I believe about 75 percent of us don't smoke. I know the argument is that most of the gamblers are also smokers - that's probably because the non-smokers don't go due to the smoke. I know we would go more often if we didn't have to debate whether or not we wanted to deal with smoky clothes, smoky hair, allergies, clogged lungs, and a headache that lasts into the next day. Notice I'm not saying there shouldn't be a smoking area, although that would honestly be my choice, but I would like to see the non-smokers have a better place to go.
So, casinos, how about accommodating the non-smokers? And if not, at least make sure your commercials are accurate and show five or six senior citizens dining in the bar, a few scruffy looking people with their elbows propped on the video slots, and a couple cigarettes in ashtrays adding to the ambience. Then at least we'll know what we're really getting.