North Jersey casinos put Atlantic City's survival at stake, Trenton told

During a required public hearing on the proposed amendment at the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, opponents said North Jersey casinos would devastate Atlantic City, where 8,000 people lost jobs when four casinos closed in 2014.

“We’re not going to be able to survive,” said Ahmid Abdullah, president of AFSCME Local 2303c, Atlantic City’s blue collar workers union.

“

“

It will be a matter of years, less than 20, less than 10, probably less than five before New York City has casinos, Senator Jim Whelan said, adding that when that happens: What Atlantic City is experiencing now, North Jersey will experience.

”

Proponents of North Jersey casinos say the new gaming halls will prevent New Jersey from losing gambling revenue to neighboring states. The bill also promises up to one-third of the tax revenue generated from the new casinos will go toward redeveloping Atlantic City.

But a tax rate for the new casinos has not been specified, making it unclear how much money the city would see. Lawmakers have also said the city’s government would not be the recipient of the money, instead those funds would be sent to a nonprofit charged with redeveloping the resort. However, the nonprofit also has not yet been determined.

Without answers to those questions, Joe Kelly, president of Greater Atlantic City Chamber, said he doesn’t know how lawmakers could move forward with the bill.

“Sometimes it’s what you don’t know that scares you the most as a business person,” he said.

He said he believes that adding North Jersey casinos would lead to two more casino closings in Atlantic City resulting in 14,000 direct job losses.

Tivayne Cottrell, an Atlantic City resident, said she worked at the former Revel, Showboat and Trump Plaza casinos, all of which have since shut down.

“It’s hard being a single mom the way jobs are these days,” she said.

Steve Young, president of National Action Network South Jersey Chapter, was critical that major decisions impacting Atlantic City’s black community, the largest demographic in the city, were coming from Trenton, where officials are mostly white.

“We’re the majority of the suppressed, the majority that paid high property taxes and the majority of (the city’s) elected officials,” Young said. “But we’re not in the majority when it comes to decision making. Decisions come from up this way.”

Local lawmakers also weighed in. State Sens. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, and Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic spoke out against the bill. Assemblyman Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, is in Israel but submitted written testimony condemning the amendment.

“It will be a matter of years, less than 20, less than 10, probably less than five before New York City has casinos,” Whelan said, adding that when that happens: “What Atlantic City is experiencing now, North Jersey will experience.”

The amendment has already cleared committees in the Senate and Assembly. The measure needs to pass the Legislature with a three-fifths majority to be presented to voters in November as a ballot question.