Tax Credits Brought a Lawsuit, a Bribery Allegation, an Offshore Company, Gloucester Co. Subs and Not Enough Jobs to Atlantic City

On a recent afternoon, Friday before the Super Bowl, a group of workers at the Atlantic City Contact Center stood in a low-ceilinged office in a corner of The Claridge’s parking garage. The place smelled of onions and pasta salad.

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Where The American Dreamers Work

You’d be hard pressed to say it was a thriving Main Street, but the barbershop, Mexican restaurant, pizza place, tobacco store, mini-mart and even the closed-looking gift store are all open on the short span of Atlantic City’s Ventnor Ave, between Harrisburg and Trenton. In an age of dying malls and online shopping, something is working here.

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New Tennessee Ave Pizza Place Gets NJEDA Grant

A new pizza-and-cocktail-bar project will get state funds to refurbish a storefront on the beach block of Tennessee Avenue, Mayor Frank Gilliam said in a press release. The restaurant, Rhythm & Spirits, will open this summer and sit between Hayday Coffee and MADE chocolate bar and it is the latest project by developer Mark Callazzo.

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Worker Safety In Hotels

Assemblymen Mazzeo (Vince) and Armato (John) are sponsoring a bill requiring hotels with at least 25 rooms to provide portable emergency contact devices or “panic buttons” to employees (i.e. housekeeping) to protect against inappropriate conduct by guests that make work conditions unsafe.

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CRDA Considers “Laptop Lounges” For Convention Center, Should It Think Bigger?

The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority is considering building laptop lounges on the upper floors of the Atlantic City Convention Center. The project – which currently exists as a request-for-proposals – would allow businesspersons to plug in and work from the sidelines of conferences. But could it be the opportunity to do something more? 

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The Business Scene: Beer And Hatchets Welcome

Atlantic City is supposed to be a bad place to start a business, but you might not know it if you were a start-up LLC looking to open an axe-throwing establishment next to a whiskey distillery in a residential neighborhood, a business idea I imagine would be met with skepticism in a lot of communities.
The axe-throwing entrepreneur, Bill Hanson, is the boyfriend of Leah Morgan, a painter, who has a studio in the Arts Garage, and is what brought Bill out of the Pine Barrens and down to Atlantic City in the first place.

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