CHARLESTON, W.Va. –The Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health voted down a motion to amend the Clean Indoor Air Regulation Thursday afternoon that would have allowed Mardi-Gras Casino and Resort to have a designated area for smoking.

This was in response to the board’s 30-day public comment period, that ended on May 2nd, after the casino showed the board a detailed proposal of the construction of a separated area that would allow smoking only. It would have excluded vapes and cigars.

Board President Jeremy Nelson said that most of the comments they received were unfavorable towards having a smoking area in the casino.

“Most were unfavorable, but a lot of what I read was unfavorable to smoking in general,” Nelson said.

The motion to amend the regulation was made at the board’s meeting by board member Jessica Hudson.

She proposed that they amend section 1008 number five to allow for gaming establishments use 10% square footage of space to allow smoking and then would allow the area to have a proper vent system that would allow a minimum air exchange of six times per hour.

“With that amendment it is definitely limiting the amount of square footage that can be used for a smoking section, and it puts in a requirement to have proper ventilation,” Hudson said before the board voted.

Nelson, who was in favor of changing it, said that the motion is well-written and would limit other entities if they decided they wanted to do the same thing.

“Is something that is well written and would limit the options for other entities that want to do that by restricting it to 10%,” he said.

The amendment was voted down 4-2.

Dara Aliff-Lao, another board member, voted no for the motion to pass.

She stated that reading the financial report on the impact for the community was great, however she had to think about the health side of things.

She said that smoking is the leading preventable cause of death, causing a $2 billion dollars in hospital bills in West Virginia because of the side effects. She Aliff-Lao also said that smoking takes 10 years off your life, causing West Virginia to have the lowest age of death, with an average of 71 years old.

Aliff-Lao said that it wouldn’t be right to amend the ordinance because of the health risks associated with smoking but because she didn’t want to mess up something that has had positive outcomes.

“I just feel like it would send the wrong message for health departments to rescind anything,” she said.