The Culinary Union is taking a gloomy view of the pace of negotiations for its next mega-contract. The hangup with MGM Mirage actually looks substantive and I’m pretty sympathetic to the company’s stance: Independent third parties should be able to negotiate their own deals with the Culinary, not be bound by whatever agreement MGM eventually signs.
As for Columbia Sussex, which has been busily cutting a swath through its Tropicana properties (929 sackings in Atlantic City alone), execs have allegedly told the Vegas staff that they’re way overpaid. If they bring similar tact to the negotiating table, things will go very badly indeed. I still think that this is the next Strip casino to try and go non-union. Sometimes it works (the Venetian), sometimes it doesn’t (MGM Grand, the Frontier).
Oh, and by the way … on the evening of the Trop’s 50th anniversary, I saw janitorial workers pushing multiple giant, rolling tubs of trash, filled to overflowing with garbage, around the casino floor, past a roomful of players. Way to keep up that "Tiffany" image, Columbia Sussex.
Sun Rises in East Dept.: Sometime developer Rohit Joshi has become a laughing stock for his bungling stewardship of downtown’s Neonopolis mall. A charter member of the Business Plan of the Week Club, Joshi has, among other schemes, proposed converting the failed shopping center into a casino. Earlier this week, he rolled out his newest Big Idea: put earrings on this pig by changing the name to "Fremont Square." One local paper was so bedazzled it actually ran this non-event as breaking news on its Web site on May 2. Said daily has since recovered its dignity and its breathless blurb on "the Joshi" has since vanished into cyber oblivion.
Speaking of Neonopolis: I know: Must we? But Tamares Group has put its adjacent Gold Spike up for grabs. Despite its name, the Gold Spike isn’t a leather bar but rather one of the seediest of Tamares’ raggle-taggle flotilla of downtown casinos, a place that puts the "d" in "dive." For whoever buys it, I have two words: Wrecking ball.
