Pinnacle’s cockeyed optimist

Call me Nostradamus: As Hurricane Isaac essentially sits parked on the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines, I am again given cause to wonder what in Heaven’s name made Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Anthony Sanfilippo think he could hold the L’Auberge Baton Rouge ‘dry run’ today (postponed from earlier this week). Isaac is in no particular hurry to get to Red Stick, en route to Memphis and points northward. If L’Auberge gets to test-drive its slots and table games by this weekend, it’ll be a miracle. One could blame it on Pinnacle’s choice of Las Vegas as its corporate headquarters — but unless Sanfilippo hasn’t paid his DirecTV bill, that’s no excuse. Heck, looking at the storm track on CNN this morning, you’d think Isaac knew where most of the Gulf Coast casinos were and decided to literally rain on their parade. But don’t mention that to faux theologian Dr. James Dobson or we’ll never hear the end of it. Since Isaac is going to deal a glancing blow to Lake Charles, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of casino closings, either. Even so, the industry is showing far greater prudence than the Mississippi Gaming Commission, which is in an almost unseemly hurry to get the Biloxi-area casinos open again, convening today to discuss that very subject. At a time like this, it’s not like gambling is at the forefront of Bayou State citizens’ minds.