Contrary to some of his early pronouncements about Fontainebleau, new owner Steven Witkoff isn’t sitting on his asset but is pursuing roughly $2 billion of the $3 billion that will be required to finish the eye, er, glittering megaresort. He’s crediting the massive 
corporate tax cuts recently pushed through by the Trump administration with his decision to accelerate the process. Witkoff is keeping his own counsel on whether F-blew will retain its name (which doesn’t have great brand equity, to put it mildly) or when he hopes to get done. The carcass of the resort is 10 years old, so there’s no telling how much remedial work Witkoff will have to do before finishing the big, blue block on the Strip. When completed (we’re being optimistic, see), F-blue will have 4,000 rooms for Witkoff to fill, so just finishing the project doesn’t get him out of the woods. Witkoff paid Carl Icahn $600 million for Fontainebleau and has a long way to, although we think financing conditions will be far better than they were when he bought. They could hardly have been worse. Still, Golden Entertainment paid $850 million and got a turnkey property (Stratosphere) and definitely got more bank for its buck. As for Witkoff, well, we wish him the best. If he hits pay dirt on Wall Street, he might even beat Resorts World Las Vegas to the finish line.
* Ten years ago, 139 Nevada casinos were asked to file emergency plans with the state. Half of them never did. Yes, the casino industry is as unprepared for disaster as the Mandalay Bay Massacre implied. Most of the Strip casinos haven’t bothered to update five-year-old plans. Don’t just blame the casinos: State officials took a laissez-faire approach to the negligence. Now all this goofing off has had deadly consequences. “This is something that we had no clue ever existed,” sputtered Clark County Fire Chief Greg Cassell, whose face should be as red as his shirt.
The state’s excuse is that it doesn’t have the money, but it sure can find the dough when it needs to build an NFL stadium for the Oakland Raiders. One company passed the buck for keeping updated to “county officials.” Station Casinos says it recently updated its plans, while Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands promised to get into compliance. Less impressive was the responsive of Las Vegas Metro, whose instinct was to cover up the negligence, exposed by intrepid Las Vegas Review-Journal reporters.
Said Nevada Press Association Executive Director Barry Smith, “We trust the government to have our backs on this kind of stuff, but when they won’t tell us what they’re doing, we 
suspect that they’re not doing anything all.” Assemblyman John Ocuguera (D) added, “There needs to be some teeth in the law so folks are compelled to act.” One idea that’s been floated has been to put enforcement in the hands of the (under budgeted, understaffed) Nevada Gaming Control Board. Cassell and others think the plans should be scrapped altogether, complaining that they are time-consuming and/or redundant. (Compliance in the Reno area is much higher, in case you were wondering.) There’s no question that some of the plans need work: One casino’s protocol was to have employees contact a supervisor rather than the fire department. “I red-lined that part, sent it back and told them to change it so that the Fire Department was called first before a supervisor,” said Reno fire Capt. Willie Seirer. Good man. In Macao, they don’t mess around with this stuff: The enclave’s six casino operators have been instructed to prepared for simulated assaults on their casinos next year. Over there, nobody’s squawking about it.
* Don’t want to stop gambling in order to recharge your power-guzzling cell phone? Station Casinos has just the gaming position for you. It has already installed 17 at the Palms, on the way to an eventual 40 devices.
* New Jersey‘s Legislature has snuck through a bill that would permit two racinos in the Garden State. The Casino Association of New Jersey saw through this bunk, calling it “an affront to the residents of this state who have clearly voted against the very activity it seeks to permit.” Trenton politicos are determined to give Jeff Gural slot machines, even if they have to crawl through the tiniest of loopholes to permit it.
* Self-serve drink fountains and more smoke-free gambling are among players’ desiderata at Tropicana Evansville, and the casino is giving customers what they want. Would that more casino companies were as responsive as Tropicana Entertainment is.
