S&G has obtained a copy of the 15-page complaint letter from the National Environmental Health Association to management of the Atlantic City Tropicana, alleging substandard conditions and service at the hotel-casino. Excerpts from this letter pretty much convicted the Tropicana and its owner, Columbia Sussex, in the court of public opinion. Trop execs, for their part, deemed the NEHA “scammers.” Read it and decide for yourself.
I’ll confine myself to two observations. One is that the tone of the letter is remarkably conciliatory in view of what it alleges.
Secondly, as much as the Trop takes a walloping herein, the NEHA complaint reflects just as badly — perhaps worse — on the work ethic and customer-service attitude of Trop employees, who include many members of Columbia Sussex detractor Unite HERE.
The Trop’s ownership has now paid the penalty for its mistakes. Those mistakes helped place the Trop at the forefront of Atlantic City properties that are currently experiencing a serious downturn. I said “helped.” Because Unite HERE clearly needs to take a look in the mirror and ask what part it played in this debacle.
Elsewhere … the legal wrangle between Park Cattle Co. and Columbia Sussex, who are suing each other up in Tahoe over the Horizon Lake Tahoe, has made the newspapers as far away as Houston. Based on the legal filings I’ve read, this Associated Press story encapsulates the entire conflict superbly in a mere six paragraphs.
Columbia Sussex is apparently having trouble scaring up potential buyers for its Casino Aztar riverboat, in Evansville, Ind. There’s a slim ray of hope for Casino Aztar, in the form of racino exec Jim Brown, who knows the Ohio River market well. Then again, to quote my favorite Babylon 5 line, “I’ve never known hope when it wasn’t on a diet.”
