UPDATE: Trump Taj Owner Asks Icahn to Stay Open

The Trump Taj Mahal's owner is making a last-ditch effort to avoid being the fifth casino to close in Atlantic City this year.

Update, 2:40 p.m.: The Trump Taj Mahal’s CEO is asking primary lender Carl Icahn to keep the casino open until a court fight with the union ends.

Icahn has not yet responded to the plea. If he agrees, the casino would remain open well into 2015. Local 54 Unite HERE is currently appealing a court decision that canceled the workers’ pensions and healthcare plans.

Earlier: The union for workers at the Trump Taj Mahal ignored a deadline from the casino to drop its appeal of a court order canceling health insurance and a pension plan for workers.

Both sides remained mum on the deal. The casino is slated to close Saturday morning at 6 a.m., the fifth casino to close in Atlantic City in 2014.

“Every day fewer and fewer people patronize the Taj, and we lose more and more of what little money we have left,” Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Bob Griffin wrote on December 11th. “We just cannot wait any longer.” Nearly 3,000 people work at the Taj.

The casino’s primary lender, Carl Icahn, said if he received the concessions — as well as tax breaks from the state — he would move forward on his plan to keep the casino open. A package of tax relief bills allowing casinos to play a combined $150 million in property taxes next year is working its way through the New Jersey legislature.

Four casinos, all on the boardwalk, have already closed this year. The Atlantic Club (formerly the original Golden Nugget, Bally’s Grand Hotel and Casino and the Atlantic City Hilton) closed in January. Showboat, a profitable casino owned by Caesars Entertainment, closed in August. Revel and Trump Plaza closed in September. The Showboat has been sold to Stockton College, who plan to open a campus at the site.

The Atlantic City region has lost about 10,000 jobs this year.

[AP | Press of Atlantic City]