Is The Hard Rock Casino In Atlantic City Smoke Free
Posted By admin On 07/04/22- Come along for the adventure as we explore the brand new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Featuring beautiful chandeliers, and exciting techn.
- Dec 08, 2020 Before the opening of its Atlantic City casino in June 2018, Hard Rock filed a federal lawsuit seeking to terminate its lease agreements with Scores and Robert’s Steakhouse. The company argued that it was not legally required to honor agreements that the restaurant and the nightclub had with Trump Taj Mahal’s owner.
- Sep 04, 2020 New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is once again backtracking on a COVID-19 restriction. The first-term Democratic governor is now saying indoor smoking at Atlantic City casinos will remain.
The Seminole Hard Rock casino last month began posting signs declaring certain spots as non-smoking. They include several walkways, elevator banks, restrooms and a spot in the high-roller slots room. Dear Doinda B: Thank you for sharing your recent experience at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Atlantic City. At Hard Rock Atlantic City, it is our goal to provide all our guests with an exceptional gaming and entertainment experience. Please be assured that we've shared your review with our Hotel Ops Management team so they are aware of your experience.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The coronavirus could be a literal game changer once America’s casinos reopen.
Many decisions remain to be made. But prepare to have your temperature scanned at the door. Maybe a half or third of slot machines will work. Every other table could be closed, and there could even be plexiglass barriers between dealers and customers or separating slot machines.
Dealers and servers and customers — including those who smoke — all could be required to wear masks in many places.
Workers may be standing by to wipe down slot machines, kiosks and even elevator buttons as soon as someone is done touching them. One Las Vegas casino plans to hand out plastic sticks for pressing the buttons.
Such safety measures being considered in casinos across the country, even though a wide-scale reopening of the industry could still be weeks away, if not longer.
“It’s important to focus on safety; it truly is,” Jim Allen, president of the worldwide Hard Rock casino and hotel chain, said. “But I sincerely feel there are those who do not have a clue as to the economic challenge this is creating. The ripple effect of the trillions of dollars in debt we’ve just put on the United States by printing money is something that we all need to be very focused on.”
Hard Rock may require 10 to 15 feet between guests. “Every employee and guest should be wearing a mask,” Allen said.
While masks have been widely adopted during the pandemic, the practice poses unique issues in a casino.
For instance, how will casino surveillance staff identify people barred from a casino through a government exclusion list, or those who have placed themselves on a self-exclusion list because of a gambling problem?
If slot machines are arranged to keep gamblers apart, what about a couple that arrives together and wants to sit next to each other while they play?
And how can chips, which are handled and swapped back and forth with each game, be sanitized quickly enough? Even money itself is often filthy.
Several casino executives in Atlantic City and Las Vegas acknowledged those are among the issues they are grappling with, and they note that state officials could still change the specifics of their plans before any reopening.
Casinos in the Chinese enclave of Macau have reopened, adopting many of the measures U.S. casinos are considering. Business has been slow to return.
New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, which must give the all-clear before Atlantic City’s nine casinos can reopen, would say only that it “has engaged with the casino industry to develop plans for the safe reopening of Atlantic City’s retail casino operations when authorized by the governor.”
In outlining a plan Monday to reopen the state, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, gave no indication when casinos might reopen.
Wynn Resorts, which has casinos in Las Vegas and Massachusetts, proposed a May 15 phased reopening, then moved it back to Memorial Day weekend.
Employees would scan each guest upon arrival; anyone with a temperature over 100.4 degrees would be turned back and referred to medical care.
At check-in, each guest would get an amenity bag including a pointer for touching elevator buttons, a bottle of hand sanitizer and a COVID-19 information card. A spray bottle of disinfectant and towels intended for cleaning will be in each guest room.
Every other slot machine would be turned off to create space between gamblers, and table games would have a maximum of three chairs.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. has installed plexiglass barriers at its front desk and is hiring companies to deep-clean. Sands, which donated 2 million protective masks to first responders, has begun building a supply for its own employees and guests, spokesman Ron Reese said.
Matt Maddox, Wynn’s CEO, wrote a guest column for the Nevada Independent in which he said the company is losing $3 million a day while shut down.
“Our economy is in a free-fall,” he wrote. “Nevada will likely be one of the hardest-hit states in the nation and suffer very high unemployment. The only way to cross this river is one stone at a time, and we need to put our feet in the water before it is too late.”
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City tried Prohibition once before. It worked so well that Nucky Johnson, the legendary politician and racketeer, built a Boardwalk empire immortalized on HBO nearly a century later.
It also tried banning smoking, too. That lasted for 20 days as smokers stayed away, sending casino revenue plummeting.
But New Jersey will ban both, again, when Atlantic City’s nine casinos reopen after more than three months of coronavirus-related shutdowns.
The late-night announcements from Gov. Phil Murphy landed like a one-two punch on Atlantic City’s casino industry, already reeling from lost revenue during the pandemic, and making plans to creak back to life at the state-mandated 25% of normal capacity.
“No booze? No one’s coming,” said Bob McDevitt, president of a casino employees union. “I really don’t even think they should open. Why would they?”
Many casinos had planned to reopen Thursday, the first day the state will let them. But that was before they knew they could not let their customers smoke, drink alcohol or anything else, or eat inside the casinos.
The top-performing casino, the Borgata, almost immediately folded what it saw as a losing hand, announcing it was scrapping its reopening plans for the immediate future. Instead, it will wait until conditions are more favorable.
On Tuesday, casino executives huddled in staff meetings, looking for more information and trying to decide whether it made sense to reopen at all.
By mid-afternoon, all except the Borgata announced plans to reopen in the coming days. Resorts, Tropicana, Ocean, Golden Nugget and Hard Rock all said they will reopen Thursday. Harrah’s, Caesars and Bally’s will reopen Friday.
Borgata had no estimate of when it might reopen.
Jim Allen, president of Hard Rock International, said the company and its thousands of workers are eager to reopen and start making up for some of the losses they have experienced since March.
“People are really desperate for a job and a paycheck,” he said.
Murphy said Tuesday casinos will just have to endure a new reality until conditions improve.
“It’s not a life sentence,” he said. “We would like to be full-bore open; we’re just not there yet.”
Before the pandemic, Atlantic City had started to regain its groove, reclaiming its former spot at the nation’s No. 2 gambling market behind Nevada in terms of annual gambling revenue.
Nevada casinos reopened nearly a month earlier than those in New Jersey, with many of the same health protocols: temperatures checks for guests and workers, mandated masks after being optional for a time, and hand sanitizer stations. Smoking was still allowed.
Within minutes of Murphy’s announcements, made in a news release issued shortly before 10 p.m. Monday, social media lit up with complaints.
Some grumbled that the governor had sucked the fun out of the casino experience, even as a smaller number defended the decision on public health grounds. Some said they were scrapping long-planned trips, and others said they would take their business to Pennsylvania casinos.
Some vowed to come anyway, mixing drinks in their rooms and bringing sandwiches for dinner.
The bans will also reduce the number of laid-off workers who will return. Drink servers and indoor restaurant workers were to comprise a significant portion of the force that had been envisioned.
McDevitt said 60% of his union members had been scheduled to return to work this week. Now, as few as 30% may go back.
Casinos can offer outdoor dining, and those with beach bars, outdoor decks or Boardwalk seating still plan to offer it. And alcohol will still be sold in liquor stores and non-casino businesses. But the last thing casinos want is their patrons leaving the premises, for any reason.
Murphy said he reversed course on indoor dining because of the continuing outbreaks in parts of the country, even though New Jersey has seen a significant reduction in the number of its virus cases.
A significant portion of Atlantic City’s casino customers comes from New York, which leads the nation in total virus cases. Murphy also said crowds at popular spots at the Jersey Shore and elsewhere have not been following social distancing rules or wearing masks.
That angered many in the casino industry.
“This is like Catholic school: A handful of people misbehaves, and the entire class gets punished,” McDevitt said.
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Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.
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