{"id":9983,"date":"2012-10-30T14:49:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=9983"},"modified":"2019-07-08T06:43:41","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T14:43:41","slug":"hurricane-sandy-its-going-to-take-years-to-recover-unsafe-sex-at-sands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/hurricane-sandy-its-going-to-take-years-to-recover-unsafe-sex-at-sands\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Sandy: “It’s going to take years to recover”; ‘Unsafe sex’ at Sands"},"content":{"rendered":"

A natural disaster on the East Coast<\/strong> is fast becoming an industry-wide problem, its effects felt as far afield as Iowa<\/strong>, I kid you not. In light of the total havoc Hurricane Sandy<\/strong> has wrought upon travel, particularly by air, Las Vegas<\/strong> will feel an extra chill in the air, too. It seems nearly frivolous to talk about casinos<\/a> when people are dead and seawalls are collapsing<\/a>, but this is a moment of some gravity for the casino biz<\/a>, and the effects on October revenue in Atlantic City<\/strong> will be dire. However, operators are taking the responsible course of action<\/a>, regardless of its effect upon their bottom line, although Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> appears to be in a bit of hurry<\/a> to get the roulette wheels spinning again.<\/p>\n

The pleasant surprise was that, despite an eight-foot storm surge that made Atlantic City seem like the second coming of Atlantis and took out a large chunk of the Boardwalk<\/strong>, A.C.’s casinos came through darn near unscathed, according to early reports. (As for the human toll, it could have been a lot worse when you consider that serially useless Mayor Lorenzo Langford<\/strong> [D] was tripping over his shoelaces<\/a>.) Or maybe not …<\/p>\n

It is rather symbolic of the downcast state of Trump Entertainment Resorts<\/strong> that part of lowly Trump Plaza<\/strong>, the leading charity case on the Boardwalk, would be physically disintegrating beneath Sandy’s fury. (The worst danger to the Golden Nugget<\/strong> was from a runaway yacht at the nearby marina.) Ironically, the hurricane’s arrival \"\"coincided with a deadline imposed<\/a> upon Colony Capital<\/strong> to either keep the Atlantic Club<\/strong> up and running or call it a day. Since we’re in the very early innings of Colony’s initially promising, grind-joint repositioning of the former Atlantic City Hilton<\/strong>, it only makes sense to keep the doors open. Besides, there’s finally some adult supervision — that of the Division of Gaming Enforcement<\/strong> — of the place and Colony was strong-armed into reinvesting $24 million into the casino whose finances it ruined. Short of using Colony CEO Tom Barrack<\/strong> (right<\/em>) as a human shield against the storm, I can’t think of a fairer solution. Besides, Barrack is only good creating damage, not preventing it.<\/p>\n

While the State of New Jersey<\/strong> deployed forces to guard the gaming houses<\/a>, operators like industry ambassador and Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong> CEO Anthony Rodio<\/strong> (right<\/em>) began totting up lost revenue. The \"\"best-case scenario would be a $15 million bite, or a third of what Hurricane Irene<\/strong> inflicted, probably closer to $25 million-$30 million<\/a>. However, analyst Michael Pollock<\/strong> seems to be whistling past the graveyard when he asserts that post-Sandy business will be buoyed by “pent-up demand.” Forgive me for being a spoilsport but when a hurricane of epochal proportions has just plowed through your neighborhood<\/a> and perhaps — as in the case of my sister in Philadelphia<\/strong> — torn a big chunk off your house, allow me to suggest that gambling isn’t going to be the #1 use of your discretionary income. (Only bond analyst Barbara Cappaert<\/strong> appears to get this.) Cleaning up after Sandy could, however, be a darn good excuse for the industry to accelerate Atlantic City reinvention projects<\/a> like Harrah’s Resort<\/strong>‘s planned, $134 million convention center.<\/p>\n

Further up the coast, both Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> and Mohegan Sun shut their doors<\/a> and hunkered down for the storm. Regardless of whether or not Resorts World New York<\/strong> stayed open, I daresay it was seeing darn few customers, New Yorkers having near-Biblical problems on their doorstep<\/a>. Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> shook its fist at Mother Nature<\/a> and, in Pennsylvania<\/strong>, vowed that Sands Bethlehem<\/strong> would stay open, consequences be damned.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Sands<\/strong> … CEO Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> and his underlings need to be a bit more \"\"selective in terms of which high rollers they coddle. That’s the clear moral emerging from the plea-bargaining supposedly underway<\/a> involving alleged evasion of cash-reporting requirements (or what’s normally termed “money laundering”). Two individuals who’d have benefited from Sands’ purported rinse-and-spin cycle would have been convicted felon Umar Siddiqui<\/strong> and jailed, uh, pharmaceutical tycoon Zhenli Ye Gon<\/strong>. Somebody (or a bunch of somebodies) at Sands probably did just what many rival casino execs might also do: bent the rules when an especially large “whale” needed a little favor. But remember, when you take money from Sheldon, you’re taking money from everybody with whom he ever did business … just like unprotected sex, y’know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A natural disaster on the East Coast is fast becoming an industry-wide problem, its effects felt as far afield as Iowa, I kid you not. In light of the total havoc Hurricane Sandy has wrought upon travel, particularly by air, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,3,42,14,117,120,7,86,101,95,25,12,87,9,129,19,20,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9983"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24463,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9983\/revisions\/24463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}