Barden will allow smoking in his casino in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Smoking casino in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, non-smoking in Colorado. Online casinos have no such problems

Don Barden, a casino owner, won't ban smoking at his Pittsburgh casino, nor is he prepared to create designated nonsmoking sections on the gambling floor. As a result, Mr. Barden won't pursue environment-friendly LEED certification for the $450 million casino, to be built on the North Shore just west of the Carnegie Science Center, although he does plan to incorporate green building practices and techniques into the design. The businessman detailed his position in a letter to the Green Building Alliance, where he reasoned that the Legislature, which will again consider a ban on smoking in public places and workplaces this fall, likely will create some kind of exemption for casinos. That's despite the fact the current House version bans smoking entirely from casinos, while Senate legislation limits smoking to 25 percent of the gambling floor. "For us to declare our facility a nonsmoking facility would not be a prudent business decision, considering that a large percentage of our customers are smokers," Mr. Barden wrote. Furthermore, creating designated nonsmoking areas that would meet LEED requirements "would also likely not meet our market needs and would certainly add significant cost to the project," he said. During a design advisory panel meeting Tuesday, Michael Stern, principal with the Strada architectural firm, said Mr. Barden would have nonsmoking sections in the casino's bars and restaurants but at this time does not plan to extend that to the gambling floor. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, establishes strict requirements for environmentally friendly construction designated by the U.S. Green Building Council. To obtain LEED certification, a building must either ban smoking altogether or prohibit it except in designated areas equipped with separate ventilation systems. The smoking issue appears to be the only thing that would prevent the casino from becoming LEED certified. It's too bad. It would be a real feather in Pittsburgh's cap to have the first green casino in Pittsburgh," she said. Colorado recently passed legislation banning smoking in casinos, starting in January. Among those affected will be one in Blackhawk owned by Mr. Barden. There is an opinion that it's only a matter of time before Pennsylvania takes similar steps. "It doesn't make sense to me to design this building without the ability to accommodate smoke-free areas," she said. "This is something they already are facing in other areas and I would think they would want to be proactive and face the issue in this market." Bob Oltmanns, a spokesman for Mr. Barden and his company, PITG Gaming LLC, said competitive factors come into play in the decision to allow smoking. West Virginia casinos permit smoking, as does The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in Washington County. "We're in a competitive market. If Pennsylvania bans smoking statewide in casinos, we will certainly comply with the law," he said. "But at the moment, we have to be smart about the way we manage the casino, mindful of the fact there's one down the road in Washington and another in West Virginia. It's a market issue." Mr. Oltmanns said Mr. Barden at one point created a nonsmoking section in one of his Gary, Ind., casinos and it proved to be a bust. "The reason was the people who went to the nonsmoking area discovered the machines they liked to play weren't there, so we did away with it," he said. At the same time, Mr. Oltmanns seemed to leave the door open for possible changes, saying the casino plans to "listen to our customers" once it opens next year. "If we determine our customers would like to see some portion of the building designated nonsmoking, I'm sure that would be something we would take very seriously," he said. Like Mr. Barden, The Meadows is in no mood to ban smoking on the gambling floor, although it does have nonsmoking sections in its restaurants. Spokesman David La Torre said the slot machine parlor is in an "intense competition" with West Virginia for gambling dollars. "Many customers enjoy smoking. You take that right away from them, they won't think twice about driving 20 minutes [to West Virginia]," he said. An outright ban would "put us at an incredible disadvantage," he added. "We want to maximize our ability to keep people in Western Pennsylvania at The Meadows." Each of the other four racetrack casinos in Pennsylvania offers a nonsmoking section to slots gamblers. While Mr. Barden won't seek LEED certification, he said in his letter that the casino is "fully committed to making our best efforts -- within the schedule and our budget -- to making this a green project." Toward that end, the casino has put together three pages of design and construction initiatives that conform to green building principles and best practices, including energy recovery systems and sustainable site strategies. The Green Building Alliance acknowledged that the casino had incorporated green building techniques into the design but said they were saddened it chose "not to go that extra step" toward LEED certification. "I think his design team is doing a good job integrating a variety of green building technologies. Unfortunately for us, if he's not going for LEED certification, particularly with a building of this scale, it's hard for me to validate it as a green building."