AC’s Cockamanie Convention Biz, Beach Sand and Lawsuits – Friday’s Roundup

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AC’s Cockamanie Convention Biz
We took a magnifying glass to the state’s assertion that last year was Atlantic City’s best year for conferences, tradeshows and meetings. It was, but there’s a big but. It turns out that when a state agency pays casinos to build fancy new conference centers, businesses start holding their events there, instead of at the Atlantic City Convention Center, which is run by the same state agency (CRDA). Of course, bringing a million people into the city last year was no mean feat and Meet AC deserves credit – but the luxury taxes paid by those visitors are right now being used to fund a $2 million bathroom refit at Boardwalk Hall. In a city where almost 40 percent live in poverty. To cap it off – the casinos got money to build the conference centers because they promised to add jobs… So we checked  – and it turns out they actually cut jobs. Read the story, with documents, here.

Beach Sand
“Finding sand for the beach sounds like a joke, but scientists say the ocean floor is mostly covered in mud.” You should read this great Philadelphia Inquirer piece that looks at where our beach sand comes from and follows the lives of the people who bring it to us.

Lawsuits
Do you want to know how much New Jersey paid out to settle lawsuits last year? It was down – slightly – from 2015, but the state still spent $88 million on a range of tax court cases, medical malpractice suits and discrimination suits. Some great freedom-of-information reporting by NJ Advance’s S.P. Sullivan here.

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The rest of today’s headlines include a piece looking at the impact of changes in immigration policy in Atlantic County, a report from a new Atlantic County effort to fight the drug epidemic, the chance to vote for a Google Doodle by a Cherry Hill schoolgirl and an EHT chef who won a South Jersey cooking award. All that and more below:

 

 

 

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