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New Jerseys Casino-Hotels to Shutdown on Wednesday
The casino-hotels, which employ about 46,000 people and attract millions of gamblers and vacationers every year, will remain open, but the blackjack tables, roulette wheels, slot machines and horse racing books will go silent beginning at 8a.m. Wednesday, barring a last-minute reprieve from the courts or state budget negotiators in Trenton.
They've endured hurricanes and blizzards, labor strikes and a parking garage collapse. If there's one sure thing in a city of uncertain ones, it was always this: casinos find a way to keep the dice rolling.
With state leaders unable to pass a new budget by the constitutionally mandated July 1 deadline, Gov. Jon S. Corzine last week ordered all non-essential state government operations halted, including the New Jersey Lottery, road construction projects and state agencies.
Caught up in a statewide government shutdown, New Jersey's 12 casinos are to stop taking bets Wednesday for the first time ever in what the city's police chief called a "state-created disaster."
Among the state employees furloughed are the casino inspectors who keep tabs on the collection, counting and certification of the money won by the 12 gambling halls. Without them, the casinos can't operate because the state would have no way to ensure that it receives its 8 percent share of the casino revenue pie.
It would be the first time casinos have been forced to close since Resorts opened its doors in 1978 as New Jersey's first casino-hotel. In the intervening years, they have always managed to keep the door open, even if it meant shoveling snow, fortifying entrances with sand bags to protect against Atlantic Ocean waves or putting CEO's to work flipping burgers during labor strikes.
Police Chief John Mooney said the sudden evacuation of the casinos could lead to problems with drunken driving, street crime and ultimately labor unrest. If the closings last, casino workers who aren't being paid could make trouble, he said.
Casino executives were busy Tuesday planning for the shutdown - marshaling security plans, drafting letters to give to guests checking in and preparing public-address announcements that will warn gamblers in the hours before 8 a.m.
Up to 15,000 casino employees will be thrown out of work by the closings, and that number could double if the casinos remain closed through the weekend, according to Robert McDevitt, president of Local 54 of UNITE HERE, a labor union that represents rank-and-file casino hotel workers.
"They're going to lose a lot of money, " said Jerome Harper, 42, of Philadelphia, who was playing a Triple Cash slot machine at Resorts Atlantic City on Tuesday. "It's bad, why close it down when you could just do your job and put the budget together? That's what they're paid for."
"This is what brings the money in, " said Bertha Arrington, 57, of Baldwin, N.Y., who was playing the slots nearby.
Monday, 24. 2006
Brian Letendre