Smoking foes questioning tax breaks

CARSON CITY -- Anti-smoking advocates said Friday that Las Vegas companies seeking big sales- and property-tax breaks to build environmentally friendly projects should have to follow the rules requiring control of tobacco smoke if they want to reap the financial benefits of Nevada's "green" legislation.

Anti-smoking representatives who testified at a Nevada State Office of Energy hearing on regulations implementing new rules for the tax breaks said there should not be any exceptions to the requirement that qualifying projects must either be entirely smoke free or provide entirely separate ventilation systems for designated smoking areas.

Beverly Daly Dix, president of the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, said buildings must follow the requirements if they are to be certified under the LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, standards.

The standards are meant to encourage energy conservation, among other environmentally friendly goals.

Dix said even companies grandfathered in under the far more generous 2005 version of the Legislature's tax breaks for green construction should not be exempted from the smoking control requirements in LEED certified buildings.

Dix acknowledged that the smoking control requirements were waived under an earlier version of the state regulations implementing the tax breaks for LEED certified projects.

"For the record, it is the position of the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition that this part of the LEED standards cannot be waived under the provisions of AB621," she said.

Assembly Bill 621 is the new, less generous measure providing tax breaks for LEED building projects.

But Carson City attorney Bob Crowell, representing one of the grandfathered projects, the Echelon Place project by Boyd Gaming, said such projects are exempted from the smoking control requirements under regulations adopted earlier by the state Energy Office.

The grandfathered projects, the only ones now entitled to the lucrative sales tax breaks on the cost of construction, will follow the old state regulations which don't require compliance with the environmental tobacco smoke requirement to become LEED certified, Crowell said.

The exception for the grandfathered projects is provided for in AB621, he said.

Hatice Gecol, director of the Nevada Office of Energy, said it was her intention with the regulation to allow no exceptions to the LEED requirements, including the need to control tobacco smoke, under the new regulations going forward.

But Dix expressed concern about the projects grandfathered in under the 2005 legislation and subsequent regulations adopted by the Tax Commission.

"Our concern is with the early applications," she said. "It seems there is going to be an exception there. They are mammoth projects, and they are applying for mammoth tax abatements, and they should have to follow the environmental tobacco smoke requirements of LEED also."

Stephanie Steinberg, chairwoman of a group called Smoke-Free Gaming, also objected to any exemptions.

There are casino projects marketing themselves as U.S. Green Building Council LEED certified projects, even though control of tobacco smoke is required under LEED, she said.

Nevada voters approved a measure last year prohibiting smoking in most public places, but casino gaming areas are exempted.

The 2007 Legislature radically reduced the tax breaks for green construction, including an elimination of any sales tax break for all but a handful of projects grandfathered in under the 2005 legislation. Property tax breaks were also dramatically reduced for all projects, including those grandfathered under the 2005 legislation.

In addition to the Boyd project, the five other projects that will still be allowed to take advantage of a sales tax exemption under the 2005 legislation are the CityCenter project being built by MGM/Mirage, Fontainebleau, the Venetian's Lido/Palazzo Resort projects, the Molasky Corporate Center and the Panorama Towers project. All are in Las Vegas.