William Yung III doesn’t deserve friends like UNLV’s David Schwartz. He really, truly doesn’t.
I mean, we’re talking about an exec who, as Schwartz writes, “seems to have brilliantly alienated most of the New Jersey gaming community.” Who else but Yung would tell the Garden State’s governor to, in essence, bugger off … or radically downsize the Atlantic City Tropicana‘s workforce at the very moment when it was guaranteed to enflame a citywide unionization movement? (Had Yung been a mole for the UAW, he could scarcely have done better for them. Maybe they should name him “Organizer of the Year.”)
Pleas for moderation from fellow casino operators apparently fell on deaf Yungian ears — and since the A.C. Trop had always been Columbia Sussex predecessor Aztar‘s cash cow, ‘ColSux’ (as one Net wag dubbed it) was ill-advised to trash it. But Yung wanted to do his signature “slash-and-burn business model” (in the words of The Press of Atlantic City) and confected any old rationale to justify the outcome.
My disagreement with Schwartz is twofold and one of the points is fairly minor. He refers to ‘ColSux’ as a “prosperous, expanding company.” By its own admission, it’s a debt-burdened company, flirting with Chapter 11, run by a prosperous individual who gets that way, in part, by lowering his employees’ standard of living, whether through the pink slip or through subpar wages. Yung’s fortune, in other words, is predicated upon other people’s misery. Not my kind of guy.
As for “the right to run a shoestring operation,” Columbia Sussex doesn’t have one — at least, not in an Atlantic City casino. You can argue that the requirement of maintaining “a first-class facility” is too nebulous and subjective … and you’d probably be right. Trouble is, to twist an old saying, it may not be a good idea, it’s the law. And as such, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission has to enforce it, whether it wants to or not.
Schwartz goes one step farther and appears to argue that the NJCCC should have swept the whole matter under the rug. But isn’t the current public image of the Trop the exact stereotype that Atlantic City is trying to shed: seedy casinos whose business is in a tailspin? The city’s image seems better served by encouraging owners who invest, not by enabling decrepitude.
Schwartz is doing the honorable thing, standing up for the principles of limited government oversight and free-market economics, not looking for thanks from Yung. Which is good, because he probably won’t get any. He’s more likely to hear the immortal “Please, get away from me.” Like I said, a better champion than Yung deserves.
Speaking of David Schwartz … Don’t leave his DieIsCast.com blog without digesting his early reports on Palazzo. I hope executives at Las Vegas Sands are reading Schwartz’s critiques, because they could benefit from his observations. And don’t miss the indescribable Casino Carpet Gallery. The “Palazzo Slot Salon” carpet very nearly caused me to recoil and cry, “Eek!” Sheldon Adelson, call Carpet Barn, stat!
