While Atlantic City burns …

While Atlantic City burns, Gov. Chris Christie fiddles. After coming into office saying the right things about helping the state’s casino industry, Christie has spent most of first months in office dithering uselessly. Having waited until A) the Revel project is comatose and B) a local referendum on Revel-only tax breaks is moot and C) his signature was a mere formality, Christie applied his belated John Hancock to a bill forbidding the good burghers of Atlantic City from voting on their own future.

But Christie is far from a prime suspect in the matter of “Who Killed Atlantic City?” Accusatory eyes should turn to Local 54 President Robert McDevitt, who has thrown up obstacle after obstacle to Revel. Truth be told, the former Morgan Stanley project probably can’t get built without tax breaks but an unfinished Revel would suit “Rule or Ruin” McDevitt just fine. His trump-card argument (pun intended) is that Revel would put three or four existing casinos — presumably the ones recently described in a state-commissioned report as “parasitic” — out of business.

Your point being … ? Is the future of Atlantic City really going to be brighter without Revel but with the bottom-scraping quartet of Trump Marina, Trump Plaza, the Atlantic City Hilton and repossessed Resorts Atlantic City? Even McDevitt allows that the job loss/creation equation would be a wash. Propping up the dinosaurs of the market by working to keep new competition out is merely forestalling a far bleaker employment situation down the road, in our analysis. Subsidizing a new megaresort doesn’t square with S&G‘s free-market principles but the greatest hope for the Boardwalk are new, destination-quality resorts — not the oversized grind joints to which McDevitt clings.

• Is CityCenter an ailing mastodon? I’m not ready to go that far but the Wall Street Journal minces few words, rendering the grimmest analysis of the metaresort’s prospects that I’ve read to date. MGM Mirage promised the Vegas economy a sizeable upward bump in visitation from CityCenter’s opening but so far the operative word is “dilution.” Judging from the weakness of MGM’s lower-end Strip properties, CityCenter’s not even pulling in the look-see crowd … or else they’re all staying at Harrah’s Entertainment casinos and gorging on the “Buffet of Buffets.”

(Don’t be fooled by the WSJ photograph. The gloom-themed Aria casino floor is a lot dimmer than the picture makes it appear.)

• Isn’t it time to put the Foxwoods-in-Philadelphia project out of its misery (and thereby very possibly bringing Steve Wynn back into the picture)? Keystone State regulators have reasons to prolong the agony, though: 2,000 reasons a day.

• Solons in Louisiana have voted against banning smoking outright in Pelican State casinos, which is smart. However, they also voted against the creation of smoke-free areas, which is criminally stupid. The rationale? Creating no-smoking zones would inconvenience the casino industry by requiring it to spend money. (Seriously.) God forbid a casino should have to spend one thin dime on patron safety or comfort.

• Remember that big resurgence of Gulf Coast development that was supposed to follow Hurricane Katrina? Those lines of high-rise condos marching along the seaside? Never happened. Which means that there are considerable “tracks [sic] of land” available for casino development, even within the 800-foot-wide strip of coast land to which gambling is restricted. Banned-in-Alabama e-bingo operator Country Crossing is kicking the tires on a sort of casino-in-exile and we’re sure Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour will be happy to accept all that Country Crossing revenue that so doth offend the nostrils of his prim Alabama colleague, Gov. Bob Riley. The Bayou State’s veteran top gaming regulator, Larry Gregory, says would-be casino projects are a dime a dozen now and he isn’t going to get excited about Country Crossing just yet.

• Sammy Hagar‘s Cabo Wabo Cantina, at Planet Hollywood, offers food that is bland and — except for the Sunday brunch — overpriced. (Unless dropping a twenty for a burger is one’s notion of a “bargain play.”) So it’s difficult to get excited about Don Marrandino bringing another Hagar-themed eatery to Bally’s Atlantic City. The struggling casino could use the added star power, though, and since the Hagarmeister will donate all the profits to charity, we salute his civic spirit.