In January of this year, Columbia Sussex finalized their purchase of Aztar, which owned, among other things, the Tropicanas Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Once they took over, they fired a lot of workers, which got the unions pretty upset. Now, according to the AC Press, the Trop AC is a rundown shadow of its former self:
It sounds like a fleabag motel: Bedbugs, roaches, overflowing toilets, smelly rooms and dust so thick that one guest was able to scrawl his name on the furniture.
But customers complained that they encountered these unsanitary conditions and more at the Tropicana Casino and Resort under its new owner, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corp.
The complaints are contained in a state investigative report submitted as evidence Tuesday at the start of Tropicana’s relicensing hearing before the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the casino industry’s investigative agency, took the complaints from Tropicana’s own customer files. Tropicana fought to have the complaints stricken from the state report, but the request was denied.
Tropicana is facing allegations that mass layoffs under Columbia Sussex’s reign have left the 2,000-room casino hotel understaffed, filthy and far from being the “superior, first-class facility” required by the New Jersey Casino Control Act.
“Numerous patron complaints from Tropicana Atlantic City’s own files evidence the impact that the layoffs have had on the condition of the property and shown that there is true concern about Tropicana’s ability to create and maintain a successful, efficient casino operation,” said Yvonne G. Maher, acting director of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
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According to the state report, two patrons complained that their hotel room was infested with bedbugs and another was bothered by an overflowing toilet. Another guest said her suite was dirty and had roaches. Yet another guest reported that there was mud on the bathroom floor. In March, another guest found his room so dirty that he could “write his name on the furniture and TV due to an overwhelming amount of dust.”In the public sections of the casino, two customers complained that the restrooms in a slot area reeked of urine and were “just plain filthy.” One guest said the women’s bathroom in the bus lobby was flooded by water up to her ankles. Two other patrons said that health officials should shut down the casino. Another guest who complained about having to wait 45 minutes for a slot jackpot to be paid out called Tropicana “a dump.”
Disputing that the complaints were widespread, Yung said that Tropicana consistently is rated as Atlantic City’s second or third best casino in Internet customer ratings.
Tropicana customers complain of bugs, filthy conditions
I haven’t inspected the facility myself to render my own judgment, but I’ll say this: I’m ambivalent about using customer complaints as a material part of a licensing procedure.
As anyone in the business knows, some customers complain about virtually anything that’s even close to being less than perfect in hopes of getting a freebie. “My bathroom didn’t have a bar of soap in it,” they might say, “and it took almost five minutes for the front desk to send one up. I want my entire 3-day stay comped, plus show tickets and a few buffet passes.” Seriously.
Things may be bad at the Trop, and it sounds like they are trying to run the place on a shoestring budget, which isn’t going to help the company or the city’s image in the long run. But I’d like to take a poll of casino execs around town: how many of them would be willing to make their complaint files public?
I wish they would, because it would make fascinating reading. One of my long-term ambitions at the CGR is to acquire a complete complaint file from a major property, just so future historians will see what front desk managers had to put up with.
Seriously, though, I don’t think that regulating casinos at this level is altogether appropriate. If Columbia Sussex wants to run an inferior operation (which I’m not personally alleging; I’m just saying that for the sake of argument), let them. Their patrons will abandon them, which will lead to one of two things: they’ll add more workers and put more money into upkeep, or they will sell the casino to someone who will take care of it.
This is a problem that the market, not the regulators, should be allowed to solve.