Atlantic City Is Reopening But Without Any Of The Fun
Atlantic City is reopening and gamblers up and down the East Coast are celebrating…well sort of. If you want a real life reenactment of the Boardwalk Empire and to visit Atlantic City during the prohibition era that is. Yes, Atlantic City is reopening, but without any of the fun. There will be no drinking in the casinos, eating indoors or smoking allowed. Many players will enjoy the smoke free environment but drinking and eating at a casino goes together like peanut butter and jelly. That is what comps, free $100 dinners and status matches are all about!
RELATED: Spend A Weekend In Atlantic City…FOR FREE!
Last Minute Announcement
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy released the news in the cloak of darkness late last night. Probably to avoid the cigarette tipped pitch forks. This announcement comes a little over 24 hours before the Atlantic City casinos were set for their grand reopening. And it is on top of the already mandated 25% capacity put in place.
RELATED: Ranking Atlantic City Diamond Lounges…Which Are Better Than Vegas
Casinos Are Left Scrambling
Maybe they were watching the situation in Las Vegas play out and witnessed what having almost no protocols led to. The Governor of Nevada recently had a to institute a mask policy across the state because of rising cases. After seeing it play out maybe New Jersey decided to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and ban all the fun too!
According to NBC Philadelphia Atlantic City tried banning smoking in the past before and it lasted a whole 20 days before they dropped it. The revenues tanked so much they were forced to quickly backtrack. Throw no drinking or eating on top of that fire, plus limited capacity, and the question is, is it even worth opening?
Borgata, the only best hotel and casino in Atlantic City, has already decided against reopening. They are going to wait until it could be profitable to do so.
RELATED: Atlantic City Status Match Guide
My Thoughts
The Governor says the new mandated rules are because of outbreaks in bars and nightclubs. He has threatened to pull liquor license from non compliant institutions across the state. There is a bar in Michigan that led to 100 plus positive cases so I can see the worry here.
I do think Governors waiting until the last minute to change policy is unfair to businesses. In Michigan our Governor opened up a part of the state for Memorial Day weekend and gave business owners 48 hours notice to get everything ready to do so. With the new restrictions and the fact that nothing would have been stocked, after being shut down, made it beyond frustrating for small business owners. This is similar but on a bigger scale. Workers were ready to come back to work, liquor orders have been made, delivered and paid for, food has been ordered and now it has to be reversed last minute? This decision should have been made much sooner.
It appears Atlantic City, which has struggled mightily in the best of times, has once again landed on double zero.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
I’m not saying that I disagree but the timing is horrible. The only folks the Governor is hurting is the business owners under his watch. Precautions, sure, deciding in the 11th hour…that’s just wrong.
Was going to go there just for the sake of using my ihg free nights. Not so sure now
I go to Atlantic City around 6 times a year (last time first week of March) right before lock downs. I wasn’t planning to go again for a while especially considering I live in N.C. and NJ has put a 14 day quarantine in place (although think I could easily get around it flying to Philly and taking NJ Transit (as I always do) from there to AC since PA isn’t restricted and I seriously doubt they are checking IDs on that train.
In any event I am going back in mid September mainly to get my status as the Trop to the next level for 2021 (already requalified for Diamond Plus at Caesars and have M Life Gold locked in through 2021). Hopefully by then I can at least get a drink. This will really kill volume in the casinos which may be exactly what the governor intended.