Friday, Oct. 11, 2002 | 10:01 a.m.
ATLANTIC CITY -- Yes, there are still neighborhoods in Atlantic City where casino-era prosperity is but a rumor. But the Boardwalk and the Marina District are on a hot streak, with 12 casinos in business and a 13th being built.
Sure, dozens of Atlantic Avenue shops and stores that expected to hit the jackpot with casino-related customers went bust after the first one began taking bets. But others made the transition to casinos, and many more sprouted up to serve the $4.2 billion-a-year industry.
Yes, crime is up. But with 30 million visitors rolling into town annually to roll the dice or play the slots, that was bound to happen.
So say the casino executives, state regulators and civic leaders who helped fashion Atlantic City's evolution from decaying seaside resort to booming casino mecca, reflecting on the changes during a pair of panel discussions Wednesday.
"Did it work? Yes, it worked," former Casino Control Commission member Carl Zeitz said. "It delivered on the promises, and I was a skeptic. All the horribles were true. But yes, it worked."
The retrospective was held to mark the 25th anniversary of the state Casino Control Commission's first meeting in 1977.
In a Nov. 2, 1976, referendum, New Jersey voters agreed to let Atlantic City have casinos -- two years after rejecting a ballot question that would have permitted them statewide.
The first casino, Resorts International, opened on May 26, 1978, with long waits for people to even enter the building and gamblers standing three- and four-deep at the craps tables.
"We won over $100,000 in slots that first day," H. Steven Norton, a former Resorts executive, said. The success of the casino and its successors helped persuade Las Vegas casino operators, who were initially leery of investing in Atlantic City, to try their luck here, he said.
In fact, the early success led to one of the biggest fines ever levied against an Atlantic City casino.
"Money was being put in so fast Resorts couldn't count it within the time frame that was given," lawyer Joel Sterns, who represented the casino in that case, said. "They were fined $250,000, which I don't think bothered them."
Such scrutiny has helped New Jersey's casino regulatory system acquire a reputation as the most effective in the world, prompting other states and nations to model their systems after it, said former commission Chairman James Hurley.
The ultra-strict regulation, which in turn fostered public confidence in the integrity of the craps games and slot machines, has helped build an industry that now employs more than 46,000 people and wins $4.2 billion a year from gamblers.
That success -- using casinos as an economic development tool -- paved the way for dozens of other cities and states to do the same.
"Atlantic City is looked upon as the vehicle that legitimized gaming," said G. Michael Brown, a former New Jersey regulator who now heads an Indian casino soon to open in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
But mistakes were made, panelists acknowledged.
Chief among them: The enabling legislation, which established the ground rules for casino operators, required that casinos have at least 500 hotel rooms and specified amounts of convention space, restaurants and retail stores.
Those amenities, which were intended to help make the casinos attractive to gamblers, paid off in spades for the casinos. But they hurt Atlantic City businesses, which were left out as gamblers ate, shopped and attended concerts inside the casino buildings.
Indeed, Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford said, there were about 100 full-service restaurants in the city when casinos began to open. Now, there are 14, he said.
"We kind of shot ourselves in the foot when we created the legislation that casinos would be all-encompassing, self-contained," Langford, a former casino dealer, said.
"The city's business district was destroyed because people had no reason to leave the casinos," he said.
About 25 percent of Atlantic City's residents still live at or below the poverty line, Langford said.
"When casino gambling came into Atlantic City, we were somewhat ignorant of what was coming," said Pierre Hollingsworth, a former councilman and fire chief who campaigned for casinos before the 1976 referendum.
"Even though we were going across the state selling it, and we believed in it, we didn't have the slightest clue what was about to hit us," he said.
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