{"id":2260,"date":"2018-02-21T14:43:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T14:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atlanticcity.com\/news\/?p=2260"},"modified":"2018-10-09T01:03:22","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T01:03:22","slug":"atlantic-city-tropicana-wow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/atlantic-city-tropicana-wow\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic City Tropicana: Second Place is Not So Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tropicana Casino Hotel: Best of the Boardwalk<\/h1>\n

For years Tropicana was mismanaged and the people knew it.<\/h2>\n

\"Tropicana<\/p>\n

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2014 Ten years ago, Atlantic City\u2019s Tropicana casino was on the verge of death, having been stripped of its casino license after its then-owners laid off vast swaths of the workforce, leading to filthy rooms, insect infestations, hourlong waits for slot machine payouts and food and drink orders that often never arrived.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hotel has made it back from the abyss and the numbers are showing it.<\/h3>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible difference and transformation,\u201d said Tony Rodio, president of Tropicana Entertainment.<\/p>\n

The Tropicana ended 2017 second among Atlantic City\u2019s seven casinos in terms of total gambling revenue with $390 million, trailing only the perennial market leader Borgata, which had more than $800 million.<\/p>\n

Not that everything is perfect. On Wednesday, a guest set up an illegal methamphetamine laboratory<\/a> in a Tropicana hotel room, starting a fire that forced the temporary evacuation of four floors and injuring two people: the man charged with drug and other offenses, and a hotel worker who entered the room.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, the trouble started under the Tropicana\u2019s former owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corp, which laid off 900 workers \u2014 about a quarter of the staff \u2014 leaving it dirty and understaffed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this was totally gross. How could any place let that happen?<\/h3>\n

\u201cI noticed as I walked across the tile floor that I almost lost my shoes, the floor was so sticky,\u201d Fabian wrote.<\/p>\n

The Casino Control Commission stripped the Tropicana\u2019s casino license, which can be the death penalty for an Atlantic City casino. But it allowed the casino to continue operating while new owners were sought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0The outsiders see the difference and they are bullish.<\/h3>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very impressed with what Tropicana has done over the last 10 years,\u201d said Steve Norton, a former Atlantic City casino executive-turned-casino analyst. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have the funds to do what they needed to do, and Icahn\u2019s money has made a big difference there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But McDevitt praised Icahn for hiring many former Taj Mahal workers at the Tropicana, and for reinvesting in the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a major fight with Carl Icahn at the Taj Mahal, but I\u2019m not going to be a hypocrite and ignore the fact that the Tropicana<\/a> is one of the best-run properties in the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cThey systematically have made it better and better.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 One thing that always stood out is the well done Havana Quarter shopping area.<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The_Quarter_at_Tropicana_in_Atlantic_City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tropicana Casino Hotel: Best of the Boardwalk For years Tropicana was mismanaged and the people knew it. ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) \u2014 Ten years ago, Atlantic City\u2019s Tropicana casino was on the verge of death, having been stripped of its casino license after its then-owners laid off vast swaths of the workforce, leading to filthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hotels","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atlanticcity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}