\nAssociated Press <\/p>\n
\tATLANTIC CITY \u2013 Gambling revenues at Atlantic City casinos have plummeted since peaking in 2006. Three casinos announced in the past month that they could be closed by summer\u2019s end. Nearly 20 percent of local casino jobs are on the chopping block.<\/p>\n
\tBut for Paul Sandler, general manager of The Palm steakhouse, which leases space at Tropicana, business is humming.<\/p>\n
\tThe restaurant he runs has grown 2 percent to 5 percent year-over-year for the past nine years in terms of revenue and customers served, he said. And of dozens of Palms across the country, the restaurant in Atlantic City is among the company\u2019s most profitable, he told The Press of Atlantic City.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019re in the top four,\u201d he said, adding he doesn\u2019t see that trend stopping soon. \u201cI\u2019ll budget myself for 2 to 3 percent growth in revenue next year, and I will meet that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tYou wouldn\u2019t know it from the headlines, but the nongaming sector of Atlantic City\u2019s casino economy \u2014 entertainment, retail, food and beverage \u2014 is growing. Nongaming revenue in Atlantic City increased by more than $160 million in the past two years and is approaching $1 billion annually, according to the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.<\/p>\n
\tAnd much of that business is being done by third-party leaseholders in the casinos.<\/p>\n
\tSales at businesses leasing space in casinos reached $289 million in 2013, an 18 percent increase from 2012, according to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement. Growth has continued in 2014, with third-party sales increasing 6 percent in the first quarter compared to the same quarter last year.<\/p>\n
\tNearly half of all businesses in Atlantic City casinos are owned by third parties, said Israel Posner, executive director of Richard Stockton College\u2019s Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism.<\/p>\n
\tBut it wasn\u2019t always that way, said Carl Braunlich, an associate professor at the College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In the early 1980s, when casinos first started operating in Atlantic City, \u201ceverybody ran their own stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tBut casinos slowly realized that the brand names of third-party companies appealed to customers in ways the casinos couldn\u2019t replicate. In the early days of Atlantic City gambling, \u201cYou didn\u2019t have a lot of franchise brands. You didn\u2019t have chef-driven concepts. You didn\u2019t have really strong clothing retailers that were looking for leases. That opportunity wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Braunlich said. \u201cIt only has developed over the past 20 years to where you could get a good third party to come in and give you a good lease and sell a great product that people were aware of because of the marketing and the presence of the brand. And now you see a lot of this third-party leasing take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tJanet Markowitz, co-owner of A Time For Wine, which leases space for its alcohol and cigar stores in Tropicana Casino and Resort, Resorts Casino Hotel and Caesars Atlantic City, said her businesses benefit from foot traffic in the casinos, plus the occasional jackpot.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe sell Louis (XIII), so if somebody comes in and wins (a) lot of money, they might be more inclined to buy a $3,500 bottle of cognac,\u201d she said. She said her 20-employee business is preparing to renew its lease with Tropicana. \u201cWe have met our expectations. We\u2019ve met our projections.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Palm\u2019s Sandler said his landlord-tenant relationship with Tropicana is symbiotic.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey rely upon us, and we rely upon them.\u201d Customers, he said, \u201care aware of our brand and know our brand from where they come from. So the first thing they\u2019re thinking about is \u2018Where am I eating for dinner? Where am I going? Hey, there\u2019s a Palm in the Tropicana. I like The Palm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAnd for The Palm, he said, the benefit of leasing space at Tropicana is obvious: \u201cYou have 2,300 hotel rooms above us. That\u2019s the size of a small town.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tClyde Barrow, director of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Policy Analysis, who writes an annual New England gaming report, said that for a third party, there is a risk to leasing space in a casino.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe one risk for the independent businesses is they\u2019re relying on that facility to stay open,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the casinos decide to close, they close, too, even if they\u2019ve been doing well and it\u2019s been profitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> Dr Crapology on July 20, 2014, 8:37 pm<\/p>\n \tDoc and Rose<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY \u2013 Gambling revenues at Atlantic City casinos have plummeted since peaking in 2006. Three casinos announced in the past month that they could be closed by summer\u2019s end. Nearly 20 percent of local casino jobs are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}