Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/page/9/)
County Prosecutor Damon Tyner is facing a lawsuit over gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace. This follows up on the mortgage-fraud allegations and allegations Tyner futzed around in the Kauffman case improperly.
There was a fire at the Sea Breeze condos yesterday. Amanda Auble at the Press has many details in a tidy narrative.
Does it seem like there’s been an uptick in these? Maybe it’s just me.
Here’s a very wonkish piece on the state-of-play in marijuana reform. I’m not sure I understand it, but Phil Murphy wants one thing and the Steve Sweeney/Craig Coughlin axis want another, different thing. Probably the farting around is just due to the time-honored ‘transactional’ nature of New Jersey politics.
Construction could start as soon as the Spring for the next phase of the Orange Loop entertainment and apartment project in Atlantic City.
This phase of the beach-block project will include a 10-room hotel, retail and apartment space, an entertainment area featuring a stage and concession stands and a 51-space parking lot.
The Seagull Classic is this weekend. Who remembers those old ads on Channel 2 with Tom Williams doing the voice work? Mike McGarry at the Press has a cool story about Milt Wagner who put up 52 for Camden in the basketball tourney in 1980.
The new stretch of Atlantic City Boardwalk that opened in the summer will be getting lights and ramps, according to a bid notice this week. Temporary ramp access at the end of the new length of Boardwalk near the Flagship in the Inlet had to be installed after the project opened, without lights or ramps. The boards were added above a new sea wall built by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of a project funded by the federal, state and local governments. The boardwalk was added as part of the sea wall project, but the engineers said the city was responsible for access and lighting. Walters Marine Construction is seeking suppliers and subcontractors for the new project, which will install lights and ramps between Melrose Avenue in the north Inlet and Oriental Avenue in the south Inlet.
State Senator Nicholas Scutari ponders a valuable question: What lessons from gambling legalization in Atlantic City can be applied to marijuana legalization statewide?
Well, anecdotally, we’re 40-years in and we have a 35%+ poverty rate, a ring of angry suburbanites in pickup trucks and there’s a bankrupt casino impresario currently doing standup and setting the Constitution on fire in the White House every night.
Maybe we should try a different model.
The City of Atlantic City Council voted 9-0 to issue a vote of confidence in Police Chief Henry White, following a series of articles from NJ Advance Media based on data that showed the Atlantic City Police Department used force at a higher rate than any other municipality in the state except one (Maplewood).
There are a lot of interesting nuggets in Joe Atmonavage’s story on the Atlantic City Police Dept., whose use-of-force rate is nearly four times the state average, but this one jumped out at me: the ACPD’s total uses of force dropped steadily since 2013–when there was the incident with the K9 outside the Tropicana that resulted in a $3 million settlement–but the force rate stayed pretty much the same (because the number of arrests dropped). I’m no math wizard, but doesn’t that seem odd?
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn appears to be getting ready to sell his remaining Atlantic City property, the Trump Plaza. An Icahn-backed company, IEP AC Plaza, recently paid $3 million for the deed to the long-shuttered casino, according to property documents filed in December. (You can have a look at the docs here and h/t to Reuben Kremer for his ceaseless monitoring of the property records).
Icahn’s conglomerate Icahn Enterprises took control of the Trump Plaza and Trump Taj Mahal when the previous owner, Trump Entertainment Resorts, entered bankruptcy in 2014. Icahn sold the Taj Mahal to a consortium of local investors and Hard Rock International in 2017. But his attempts to sell the Plaza were stymied by the site’s ground lease, which was held by earlier investors and acted as a so-called poison pill to prevent the sale, according to the New York Post.
Good morning Route 40 readers! Happy Solstice to all those who celebrate. Today is the day my people believe the dragon stops eating the sun and pauses to digest briefly before beginning the long process of regurgitation, which culminates on the 4th of July. Please plan to attend our Xmas party if you haven’t already done so. I will be wearing my traditional robes.
A day after the BPU rejected their proposal for a wind farm off Atlantic City, EDF Renewables announced it was partnering with Shell (a much bigger company) to build a much bigger wind farm offshore.
Is it possible when EDF said “offshore” the regulators thought they wanted to put their windmills in Northfield instead of eight miles off the coast?
I’ll show myself out.
How much confidence do Atlantic City City Council members have in Mayor Frank Gilliam?
Last week, a group of councilmen proposed restricting the mayor’s authority over city mercantile licenses, hinting they thought Gilliam had acted improperly.
Atlantic City’s getting a new supermarket, probably it will be a ShopRite-affiliated supermarket, probably it will be back on Baltic Avenue near Ohio, where CRDA owns one of its many parking lots. If it seems like only two months ago that CRDA approved a consulting contract to explore the issue, bear in mind the consultants seem to have worked even faster than that. Sentence first, verdict after! As they say. The state BPU has rejected, for a third time, a planned 25-megawatt windfarm off the coast of Atlantic City.
The State Department of Health awarded medical marijuana licenses to MPX New Jersey to open a grow facility in Galloway and a dispensary in Atlantic City. Columbia Care New Jersey got a license for a grow facility and dispensary in Vineland.