ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s Atlantic Club
Casino Hotel shut down early Monday morning, the victim of a glut of
casinos in the northeastern U.S.
Once Atlantic City’s top-earning
casino, where then-owner Steve Wynn clowned with Frank Sinatra in
commercials, bringing the legendary singer an armful of fresh towels,
the Atlantic Club went out with a whimper. In the hours before the 12:01
a.m. closing, its restaurants and bars had all shut down, and many
gamblers and employees had already left.
The few die-hards that
stayed on the casino floor until the end counted down its final five
seconds as dealers who were suddenly unemployed burst into tears and
hugged each other. Within moments, casino staff began stacking and
counting chips and preparing to remove cash boxes from the casino floor.
"Where
was our support?" asked Kathy Buonasorte, a cocktail server for 28 of
the casino’s 33 years. "They all left us. No politician helped us. No
one came to save us."
On the sidewalk outside the casino, she
hugged Beth DeLuccia, another veteran cocktail server, who she described
as the first friend she made at the casino. Nearby, server Maureen
Cohen had just finished her final shift.
"I served my last drink
at 4 this afternoon," she said. "It was incredibly sad. Can you believe
how pathetic it’s going to be to come over (a nearby) bridge and see a
closed casino?" She said people who used to work at the casino but
hadn’t been there for 20 years came back Sunday to say goodbye.
The
employees were among the 1,600 workers who lost their jobs. Cohen
planned to attend an outreach session Monday morning by the casino
workers’ union that would help them file for unemployment, food stamps
and other assistance.
"It’s a sad day," said David Rebuck,
director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, who watched the
shutdown process begin right after midnight. Dealers and security
personnel set to work counting the take from the casino’s final day.
Overnight, workers were to read the meter on each of the hundreds of
slot machines, empty the cash containers and secure them in the counting
room. At some point on Monday, armored cars were to remove the
remaining cash.
The hotel’s safe deposit boxes had been emptied
hours before the shutdown as the final hotel guests checked out, and
front-desk cashier drawers were already removed, leaving gaping holes.
By
Wednesday, crews from the Tropicana, one of two rival casinos who
bought the Atlantic Club intending to put it out of business, will begin
removing the slot machines and table games. The casino floor will be
bare by the end of the month, Rebuck said.
Guests helped
themselves to souvenirs as well, digging up or ripping out potted plants
and even six-foot-tall trees from planters on their way out the door.
It
was the first casino closure in Atlantic City since the Sands shut down
in 2006. But that was intended to make way for a bigger, better casino
that Pinnacle Entertainment planned, but never actually built.
Struggling
for years against newer, bigger casinos in Atlantic City and in
neighboring states, the Atlantic Club sought a buyer for the last few
years but was unable to attract one. It filed for bankruptcy in November
and was sold for a combined $23.4 million just before Christmas to
Tropicana Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment. Tropicana bought the
customer lists in addition to the table games and slot machines while
Caesars bought the 801-room hotel, for which it has no immediate plans.
The
Atlantic Club opened in December 1980 as the Golden Nugget, owned at
the time by casino magnate Steve Wynn. Over the years, as the Atlantic
City casino market expanded, the casino changed hands several times and
went through a handful of names: The Grand, Bally’s Grand, the Atlantic
City Hilton, ACH and finally the Atlantic Club.
As newer casinos
opened with 2,000 rooms and hot nightclubs, pools and spas, it was no
longer so special. It lost market share to its local competitors, and
the decline was hastened when the first Pennsylvania casino opened in
2006.
The Atlantic Club was more dependent than the others on
convenience gamblers looking to play for a few hours, then drive or ride
the bus back home. It struggled further as many of its best customers
forsook it for gambling halls closer to their houses.
Its owners, Colony Capital LLC, a Los Angeles hedge fund, paid more than a half billion dollars for it in
2005.
It
searched in vain for a purchaser for the past three years, before
inking a deal in December 2012 to sell itself to the PokerStars website
for $15 million. But that deal fell apart within months because of
concerns over whether the website’s management could qualify for a
casino license in New Jersey amid an unresolved indictment against the
company’s founder.
Dealer Anthony Beauford, wearing a red Atlanta
Falcons Michael Vick football jersey on his last day of work, hugged
friends and well-wishers before tallying the chips on his table as they
bade him goodbye.
"Don’t say goodbye," he admonished them. "Just say, "See ya.’ Cause I hope I will
someday."
Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.