TRENTON, N.J. -- A group lobbying to extend New Jersey's indoor smoking ban to Atlantic City casinos released a study Monday showing continued high levels of smoke pollution in nonsmoking areas at gambling establishments with designated smoking sections.

The study of Rhode Island video gambling facilities, where state law requires separately walled and ventilated sections _ as does an initially approved Atlantic City ordinance _ produced expected results: the more concentrated the smoking section, the higher the level of air pollution.

However, the study also showed that the nonsmoking sections in Rhode Island gambling establishments were far from smoke-free. In one facility, the nonsmoking area ranged from 17 percent to 37 percent as polluted as the smoking section. In the other, the nonsmoking area was 39 percent as polluted as the smoking section, according to the study.

"How dismal that the separately walled and ventilated nonsmoking sections are still one-third as polluted as the extra-polluted smoking sections," said Regina Carlson, executive director of New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, or GASP.

Repeated calls to the Casino Association of New Jersey were not returned Monday.

According to New Jersey GASP, it's estimated that confining smoking in Atlantic City casinos to a quarter of the gaming area could produce pollution levels as high as four times the levels in currently undivided casinos.

For an employee who worked in that area full-time, his or her exposure would be five times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency annual limit. Currently, casino employee exposure to cigarette smoke exceeds the EPA limit by a factor of more than one and a half, the group said.

"For employees and patrons in any of these smoking areas, quite simply, the air is not fit to breathe," Carlson said. "The only way to protect employees and patrons is to make casinos smoke-free."

Under a compromise agreement that won initial approval from the Atlantic City Council last month, the casinos would set up separate enclosures on a quarter of their floor space, with floor-to ceiling walls and high-powered ventilation systems to suck smoke out of the air.

At least some of the casinos are considering making their smoking areas lounges for patrons who wish to smoke, while keeping gambling tables in smoke-free areas. But others are toying with the idea of putting some of their highest income-generating table games in smoking areas, reasoning that many of their high-rollers are smokers.

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