Atlantic City Casinos Ante Up for Locals
Homeless families and tapped-out gamblers can get a warm bed and a free meal at the Atlantic City Rescue Mission. And not just any free meal: On one recent day, drop-ins lunched on crab legs and lobster bisque.
At Our Lady Star of the Sea School in Cape May, pupils in kindergarten and third and fifth grades returned in the fall to find that personal computers had been added to their classroom materials.
And when the Egg Harbor Township branch of the Community Food Bank of New Jersey needed a refrigerated truck to pick up donated food, a 22-foot 1987 Ford was delivered. No charge, no strings.
Although they create some paupers on the one hand, Atlantic City’s 12 casinos also share the wealth with schools, churches, libraries, shelters, retirement homes and charities.
Goods have included shampoo from the Trump Marina, prime rib left over from the buffet at Trump Taj Mahal, office furniture from the Sands Hotel Casino and computers from Harrah’s Casino Hotel.
“They do more than people could ever imagine,” says Evelyn Benton, executive director of the Food Bank branch. “And they get asked more than anyone could possibly imagine. They get hundreds of letters a day. People say, ‘Are they doing enough?’ They’re for-profit companies. What more are they supposed to do?”
Casinos Give Plenty of Hand-Me-Downs
What casinos were supposed to do was revitalize Atlantic City. More than 20 years after the first one opened, the pace continues to lag. But when it comes to hand-me-downs, the casinos do plenty.
Last year, the Rescue Mission received $300,000 in leftover food, enough to serve 570 meals a day, according to its president, Barry Durman.
Trump Taj Mahal donates prepared food five days a week, Durman says, and other casinos pitch in occasionally. Sometimes it’s prime rib, which the mission cooks cut up to use in chili or meat loaf.
When Caesars Atlantic City discarded carpeting during an expansion project, it was sent to the mission’s family life center. The mission also has received office desks, banquet chairs, soap and shampoo.
There’s some irony too: Sometimes the donations help those who have gambled away their bankrolls. But Durman and others who benefit are reluctant to criticize the casinos. “More than irony, it’s a matter of corporations helping us serve the community. I have people [from other charities] come to me saying, ‘It’s great you get their help. Here’s what we get. . . .’ The casinos really have taken on the social ills of the community by helping us take them on.”
In some cases, the casinos get tax breaks by donating used equipment to charity instead of selling it or throwing it away. But with many of the donations, the bottom line is community service, they say.
“Any tax benefits really don’t even offset the administrative costs of providing those types of items to charitable organizations,” said Harrah’s Casino Hotel spokesman Michael DiLeva. “It’s not about a tax deduction, even when they’re available. It’s about fulfilling the promise of bettering the community.”
In recent years, Harrah’s has given computers to Absegami High School, the Atlantic City Public Library, the Inlet Public-Private Assn., Our Lady Star of the Sea and a veterans’ home.
Donald J. Trump’s three casinos also have given generously. In 1996, when the Trump Regency was gutted and turned into Trump World’s Fair casino, the company gave $740,000 worth of theater and audiovisual equipment to the Richard J. Stockton College of New Jersey. It was the biggest such donation in the college’s 25-year history.
Trump’s 3 Casinos Have Been Generous
More recently, Trump Taj Mahal donated a 265-gallon aquarium, which it had bought for a casino promotion, to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in nearby Brigantine, which nurses sea creatures that wash up on New Jersey beaches. Trump casinos also donated six video cameras and six TV monitors that once watched gamblers and now enable officials and visitors to view animals recovering at the center.
In some cases, the goods are nearly new. Theme changes, name changes, corporate restructurings and renovations all can lead to one carpeting being replaced with another.
“The ranks of management seem to change all the time, and people come in and say, ‘I don’t like that, get it out of here.’ So out it goes. If it were a tire, it would have one mile on it, but it has to go,” said Jim Wise, a spokesman for the Sands Hotel Casino.
The Sands, which is remodeling its guest rooms, is giving the used chairs, tables, entertainment centers, coffee tables and framed pictures to the Eastern Pines Convalescent Center, an Atlantic City nursing home.
“You can’t solve major problems with a couple rolls of carpet and some desks,” Wise said. “It makes life easier, but it doesn’t put anyone on easy street. Still, you can make a big impact on a small scale.”
