A strip club that once operated inside the now-shuttered Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City is standing up for its right to offer adult entertainment at the facility when it reopens under new owners.
Philadelphia Magazine reported that Boardwalk 1000, LLC has brought SCORES Atlantic City to court after the strip club owners pressed the right to reopen their business should the shuttered hotel come back to life as the Hard Rock Atlantic City.
The Taj Mahal officially closed last October, putting nearly 3,000 of its staff out of work. Donald Trump’s buddy Carl Icahn and the union of casino workers failed to agree on a new contract that would cover health insurance and pension benefits.
In March, Hard Rock International struck a deal to acquire the Taj and promptly announced plans to spend $375 million remodeling the joint as the new music-themed Hard Rock Atlantic City, which is set to re-open in summer 2018.
But Boardwalk 1000 claimed that SCORES has been “impeding and compromising” the property owners’ plan to revive the beleaguered property due to the strip club’s insistence that the venue can’t open without them.
SCORES has been a fixture in the controversial property since it leased nearly 300,000 square feet for the pleasure of affluent visitors looking for worldly fun while drinking $25,000-a-bottle champagne.
In its petition filed on Monday, Boardwalk insisted that SCORES has no legal say on how they will run the casino since SCORES’ lease expired in June 2016.
Boardwalk’s counsels maintains that SCORES would jeopardize the Hard Rock’s ability to open on time in summer 2018. To allow SCORES back onto their property would also definitely disparage the Hard Rock brand, according to the lawyers.
They pleaded for the court to rule that SCORES “has no further right to occupy or utilize the space formerly leased by it.” They also appealed to SCORES to give up on their ambition to reopen the strip club in the property.
