Seven years after New Jersey legalized gambling in 1977, state lawmakers created an agency called the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to redirect some casino revenue to blighted areas in Atlantic City and across the state.
But the agency, contending that the gambling industry’s success is a critical component of the state’s economic health, has handed about $400 million back to the casinos themselves, a sum that accounts for more than 20 percent of the money it has committed since its inception.
Pardon me while I reach for some tissues to wipe the tears from my eyes. Pity the poor stuggling casinos.
The authority has subsidized construction of 13,000 hotel rooms in the city, 800 of them planned for a tower under construction at the Trump Taj Mahal. The agency spent $3.7 million for an IMAX theater to be built at the Tropicana Casino and Resort, where its grants also helped finance three floors of elegant stores, restaurants and a spa. An additional $26 million went to help build the House of Blues and to spruce up the facade at Showboat.
If you think that's the best part, just wait. I've got a better one:
The agency has also pitched in for “parking lot beautification” at Showboat and road signs for Resorts and the Taj Mahal.
Screw the poor; Showboat needs a new parking lot. I do hope to see some genuine outrage in the Garden State.
David Sciarra, who helped to write the legislation that created the reinvestment authority while working as a deputy public advocate, said that giving the money to the casinos “really goes against the very purpose of C.R.D.A.”
“It was not set up to finance industry-related projects because the industry clearly has the resources to do that on its own,” said Mr. Sciarra, who now runs a nonprofit group in Newark to help disadvantaged students. “This is a betrayal of the very promise that was made to the citizens: That the casinos would have a social responsibility to invest a small percentage of their revenue through the C.R.D.A. to help make sure residents, especially the poor, had better housing and neighborhoods.”
[...]
...despite the authority’s disbursements, Atlantic City continues to grapple with blocks of dilapidated buildings and seamy motels that draw drug dealers and prostitutes, all within the shadows of towering, brightly lighted casinos.
I must stop blogging now until my dizziness and nausea fades.
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