Hurricane Sandy may have already come and gone, but Atlantic City is still feeling the repercussions from her wrath. While there have been some positive stories coming out – Caesars’ and Golden Boy Promotions’ partnership being one of them – the stark reality is that the gambling town is still reeling from the devastation and one casino has taken a difficult step in the hurricane’s aftermath.
Atlantic Club Casino Hotel announced earlier this week that they are laying off 80 workers while also closing down two restaurants in response to the continuing struggles everybody seems to be facing as they try to get their feet back from under them.
Not exactly the kind of way they’d deal with after such a devastating natural disaster. But tough decisions have to be made and Michael Frawley Atlantic Club’s CEO, made the decision to sack the 80 employees, although he did clarify that a significant number of the 80 seasonal workers would have “lost their jobs anyway”.
“Sandy pushed the timeline more than we would have liked,” Frawley said, as quoted by the Press of Atlantic City.
A big chunk of those who got axed were either cashiers, busboys, and food servers who worked in the hotel’s restaurants. Speaking of these restaurants, Atlantic Club also made the difficult decision to close down two of these establishments in their hotel: BB’s Burger Bar and Ono Chinese Bistro. Frawley admits that the closure is only a temporary remedy to alleviate the hotel’s struggles and is hopeful that one or both restaurants will reopen to a full schedule early next year.
“If customer demand goes up sooner than expected, we’ll react in a positive way,” he said.
The decisions Atlantic Club Casino Hotel in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is a microcosm of what everyone has had to deal with since the devastating hurricane unleashed its fury on the gambling town. While we hope that Atlantic City’s wobbly legs get stabilized soon, we understand that moves like this have to be made when you’re dealing with something that you have no control over.
