ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - 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.
With two young daughters, a mortgage, no savings and no
obvious plan B, the couple is afraid of what the future holds.
"I'm worried; it's a really stressful situation right
now," she said. "A lot of my co-workers are in shock. They can't
believe this is really happening."
The pain of a sudden spasm of casino contraction in what was
once the nation's second-largest gambling market will hurt not only families
like Blanco's. 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.
The housing market could suffer as homes are foreclosed on,
or sold for less than they're 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.
And New Jersey's programs for senior citizens and the
disabled, which provide bus rides to and from the supermarket or doctor's
office and help with the cost of prescription drugs, have already been cut back
as casino tax collections plunge, and could shrink yet again.
In 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.
That would put nearly 8,000 workers - about a quarter of the
city's casino workforce - on the street.
The casino industry has had a mixed legacy - it hasn't
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's coffers and in job
opportunities, employing more than 45,000 people at the industry's peak.
Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union,
plans to seek potential buyers for the three casinos and pledges
"flexibility and cooperation" in contract talks. He is also rallying
political and public support against the closings, vowing, "we are not
taking this lying down."
Blanco, 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.
"I don't know how I'm going to explain that to
her," Blanco said.
Donald 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.
Since 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.
The 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 "a root
canal" in dealing with the city's 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.
Local businesses will suffer as well.
Michael Hauke, owner of Tony Boloney's pizza & sandwich
restaurant near Revel, has invested $700,000 in the business over the past five
years.
"The less casinos nearby, the less people we have walk
into the store," he said. "The 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."
Greg Goff's Casino Lobster company sells to the gambling
halls; last week, he started soliciting out-of-state restaurants to make up for
lost business.
"You have three fewer casinos, that's 30 percent less,
and it's 30 percent off of something that was already down," he said.
"This ain't the good ol' days."
Source: Philly.com
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