APNewsBreak: Trump Plaza temporarily shutting down due to no air conditioning

APNewsBreak: Trump Plaza closing due to no AC

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Trump Plaza Hotel Casino on the Atlantic City Boardwalk shut down temporarily Friday until air conditioning service could be restored.

Trump Plaza and another casino, Caesars Atlantic City, have been without air conditioning since early Thursday morning. A Caesars spokesman said there were no current plans to close that casino.

Tom Hickey, a spokesman for Trump Entertainment Resorts, said Friday it was just too hot inside the building to continue to ask guests and employees to suffer through it.

“We’re closing the whole place down for now,” he said.

The loss of air conditioning at Caesars and Trump Plaza could not have come at a worse time for the nation’s second-largest gambling market — in the middle of the summer season, when casinos take in the most revenue from gamblers and overnight guests.

Hickey said guests at the 906-room hotel were being transferred to two other casinos the company owns in Atlantic City, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort and the Trump Marina Hotel and Casino.

A leaky pipe at a nearby power plant that provides cold water to the casinos to power their cooling systems was to blame. Officials said it might be Monday before the situation is corrected.

The lack of air conditioning has already canceled three episodes of a nightly variety show that Trump Plaza offers. And a Friday night dance competition at Boardwalk Hall, which also was without air conditioning, was transferred to Resorts Atlantic City, a casino at the opposite end of the Boardwalk.

Atlantic City is in the fourth straight year of a revenue decline that began when the first slots parlors opened in neighboring Pennsylvania and began attracting some of the resort’s most reliable customers.

During the summer weekends, every gambler’s dollar counts as the city’s 11 casinos struggle with competitors in neighboring states, as well as the sluggish economy.

Mark Juliano, Trump Entertainment’s CEO, said the company will eventually tally its losses before deciding whether to seek compensation from Pepco Energy Services, the owner of the power plant that malfunctioned.

“But right now, the first priority is getting the air conditioning back on,” he said.