It’s been no secret that the Sands will be closing, but now it’s official: Atlantic City’s second casino to close will do so on November 11: From the AC Press:
At 6 o’clock in the morning, gamblers will be shooed off the casino floor. By noon, the last hotel guests will have packed up and checked out. That night, the building will be locked.
After 26 years in business, the Sands Casino Hotel will close its doors for good Nov. 11, costing nearly 2,200 workers their jobs.
“The employees are sad to see it go, but they understand this is inevitable. We’re all sticking together as a family to get through this,” Sands President George Toth said Thursday while publicly confirming the closing date for the first time.To shut down the property, the Sands will follow the same procedures that were used in early July when Atlantic City’s casinos were forced to close for three days during New Jersey’s state budget crisis. Toth said all gambling will stop at 6 a.m. and hotel guests will have to check out no later than noon.
“We’ll secure the building,” he said. “Come that night, the building will be shut. There are plenty of things that have to happen after we close the casino floor.”
At that time, the casino’s 2,000 slot machines and 79 table games will fall silent. The Sands’ main 500-room hotel tower will also close, although it is not clear what will happen to the 120-suite Madison House, one of Atlantic City’s few remaining grand old hotels. The Madison House, opened in 1930 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is owned by a private group, but leased by the Sands for its hotel guests.
“That is certainly an issue to be addressed at a later date,” Toth said of the Madison House’s fate.Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. has bought the Sands for $250 million and will demolish the casino to make room for a $1.5 billion megaresort. Construction on the new casino is scheduled to begin in mid-2008, with a grand opening likely in 2010 or 2011.
It would have been even more symbolic if they could have had a ceremonial last roll of the dice at exactly 11 am. And what if someone had rolled an 11?