Landscaping. Yup. Landscaping. REVEL can’t open until the CRDA approves a landscaping plan. At a public hearing on Thursday morning, the Florida developer accused the CRDA; Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, of placing roadblocks in front of him.
Days away from another announced REVEL opening, Mr. Straub went ballistic as CRDA announced his landscaping plan was not compliant. WTF?
Glenn Straub of REVEL in Atlantic City, is furious at the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. The CRDA regulates land use within the so-called tourism district where REVEL sits.
CRDA has a legal responsibility to ensure that the law is followed. All applicants must meet those legal requirements.
Is Atlantic City on a mission to scare everyone away? Sometimes it certainly looks that way. Higher property taxes, bloated staffing and miles of red tape for those willing to invest in opening a new business. No one is more miffed than Glenn Straub of REVEL. The CRDA is making it extremely difficult to open up the vacant Revel Casino in Atlantic City….so says Straub.
Listen: Straub unloads on CRDA about last-minute REVEL landscaping rules >
Other REVEL Roadblocks? Casino consultant; Steve Norton, says: since Mr. Straub is planning to re-open the Revel (with a new name), initially without a casino; he questions why the DGE has to be involved in the issuance of a liquor license.
Straub isn’t shy about his lack of fondness for the DGE either. (NJ State Division of Gaming Enforcement) Straub says the DGE has been holding up his plans to reopen the casino portion of REVEL as well.
NOTE: The NJ Casino Control Commission is lead by CRDA board member; Matthew Levinson. As chairman of this quasi-judicial panel, Levinson handles appeals of decisions of or penalties imposed by the DGE / New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Matthew Levinson is chairman of the Casino Control Commission and a boardmember of the CRDA. His father is Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson.
NOTABLE: According to Philly.com, residents of the nearby Bella condominiums expressed concerns about noise from the REVEL power plant. Editor’s note: #1. those with substantial influence on CRDA decision making, live at the Bella Condominiums. #2. The REVEL power plant is an ultra-quiet, well designed building.
STRAUB: Things like this is complicating our life. … Government, government, government. We’ll deal with this the right way, shut it down. You’re blackmailing us, adding these things in here. We have $200,000 in this simple application. Now you’re adding landscaping?
Onlookers shot back with claims of the CRDA playing favorites.
- Other casinos don’t want REVEL to re-open…Why? The CRDA is funded by the casinos.
- Blatstein avoided scrutiny over his Showboat acquisition and opened it promptly.
- How did Blatstein open Showboat with those restrictive covenants attached? Why couldn’t Stockton accomplish that?
- The landscaping, exterior walls and parking lots at Showboat…a horrible mess. Blatstein was given a pass.
Seth Grossman from LibertyAndProsperity.org: NJ’s Casino Control Commission almost snuffed out the first Atlantic City casino boom in 1980’s by telling the Tropicana what kind of wallpaper it needed in its hotel bathrooms. This is the nonsense that later drove Hilton, Donald Trump, and Steve Wynn out of NJ. Steve Wynn once said it was easier to do business in Communist China than in NJ.
Board members of the CRDA:
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