\nWayne Parry, Associated Press<\/p>\n
\tATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Yomary Blanco cleans rooms at Trump Plaza, one of three Atlantic City casinos that could shut down by September. Her husband works the buffet at the Showboat, which is scheduled to close on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n
\tWith two young daughters, a mortgage, no savings and no obvious plan B, the couple is afraid of what the future holds.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019m worried; it\u2019s a really stressful situation right now,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of my co-workers are in shock. They can\u2019t believe this is really happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe pain of a sudden spasm of casino contraction in what was once the nation\u2019s second-largest gambling market will hurt not only families like Blanco\u2019s. It will also hurt small businesses like the seafood company in neighboring Pleasantville that sells lobsters to the casinos, the pizza shop in the shadow of Revel and the beauty parlor where dealers and cocktail waitresses get their hair done.<\/p>\n
\tThe housing market could suffer as homes are foreclosed on, or sold for less than they\u2019re worth. Taxes could rise and services decline in Atlantic City, where 60 percent of the budget comes from casino taxes; the city plans to cut $10 million from its budget in each of the next four years to make up for lost casino money.<\/p>\n
\tAnd New Jersey\u2019s programs for senior citizens and the disabled, which provide bus rides to and from the supermarket or doctor\u2019s office and help with the cost of prescription drugs, have already been cut back as casino tax collections plunge, and could shrink yet again.<\/p>\n
\tIn January, the Atlantic Club closed, taken down by two rivals in a bankruptcy court auction, stripped for parts and shuttered. The Showboat will close on Aug. 31 and Trump Plaza on Sept. 16, barring some last-minute deal to save one or both of them. Revel, which was hailed as a potential savior of Atlantic City when it opened a little over two years ago, says it will close if a buyer does not emerge from a bankruptcy auction in August.<\/p>\n
\tThat would put nearly 8,000 workers \u2013 about a quarter of the city\u2019s casino workforce \u2013 on the street.<\/p>\n
\tThe casino industry has had a mixed legacy \u2013 it hasn\u2019t resulted in the wholesale community improvements some had projected after it opened in 1978, and Atlantic City has continued to grapple with crime. But it has indisputably made a huge difference in the city\u2019s coffers and in job opportunities, employing more than 45,000 people at the industry\u2019s peak.<\/p>\n
\tBob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, plans to seek potential buyers for the three casinos and pledges \u201cflexibility and cooperation\u201d in contract talks. He is also rallying political and public support against the closings, vowing, \u201cwe are not taking this lying down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBlanco, who has cleaned rooms at Trump Plaza for 18 years, is already preparing for the possibility of her job and that of her husband disappearing within weeks. First to go will be the Catholic school her 7-year-old daughter now attends.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to explain that to her,\u201d Blanco said.<\/p>\n
\tDonald Moliver, dean of Leon Hess Business School at Monmouth University, said the casino closings will have a ripple effect on the local and regional economy as less income is injected into it. He predicted mortgage delinquencies will rise, and government tax collections will fall.<\/p>\n
\tSince 2006, right before the first Pennsylvania casino opened, the amount of taxes New Jersey has collected from casinos at an 8 percent rate has fallen from $413 million to $207 million this year.<\/p>\n
\tThe contraction of the casino market could result in the shift of more of the tax burden from casinos onto Atlantic City homeowners. Mayor Don Guardian took office in January promising voters \u201ca root canal\u201d in dealing with the city\u2019s troubled finances. In addition to $40 million in budget cuts over the next four years, the city plans a revaluation that is expected to shift some of the tax burden from casinos, which had been overvalued, onto homes, which have been undervalued.<\/p>\n
\tLocal businesses will suffer as well.<\/p>\n
\tMichael Hauke, owner of Tony Boloney\u2019s pizza & sandwich restaurant near Revel, has invested $700,000 in the business over the past five years.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe less casinos nearby, the less people we have walk into the store,\u201d he said. \u201cThe troubling thing for us is we have customers that are just gone. They move to Delaware or Maryland or Rhode Island to work in a casino there because it dried up here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGreg Goff\u2019s Casino Lobster company sells to the gambling halls; last week, he started soliciting out-of-state restaurants to make up for lost business.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou have three fewer casinos, that\u2019s 30 percent less, and it\u2019s 30 percent off of something that was already down,\u201d he said. \u201cThis ain\u2019t the good ol\u2019 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> TheLion on July 25, 2014, 2:12 pm<\/p>\n \tAbout 40 years ago, Vegas and AC were it for gambling<\/p>\n \tNow, my parents can drive 5 minutes to a local casino and win a little bit<\/p>\n \tAC basically "governed" themselves out of business<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wayne Parry, Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Yomary Blanco cleans rooms at Trump Plaza, one of three Atlantic City casinos that could shut down by September. Her husband works the buffet at the Showboat, which is scheduled to…<\/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-7713","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\/7713","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=7713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}