Boutique Casinos Closer to Reality in Atlantic City

A bill that recently advanced would ease the requirements for smaller "boutique" casinos in Atlantic City. The first could be The Chelsea.

Atlantic City at dusk, November 2014

Photo | Dan McQuade

It was more than four years ago that Chris Christie signed legislation approving new boutique casinos in Atlantic City. Despite interest from a few groups and one submitted proposal, no boutique casinos ever opened. Then, four large casinos closed in 2014.

But the interest in boutique casinos remains, and this week an assembly panel advanced a bill that would ease some of the requirements for smaller casinos.

The old bill required one of two boutique casinos to eventually expand to a casino with 500 rooms, and mandated both boutique casinos in the pilot program be new construction. The new bill would eliminate both requirements; the new casinos would still need to have at least 200 rooms to also operate gambling.

One possible new casino? The Chelsea, a boutique hotel on the Atlantic City boardwalk south of the Tropicana. Owner Curtis Bashaw said last year he thought his hotel would be an ideal spot for one of the city’s first boutique casinos. The Chelsea has 330 rooms.

When a Senate panel approved the bill last December, Bashaw said he’d like to turn the Chelsea’s fifth floor into a small gaming area. “It certainly hasn’t been an easy market in Atlantic City,” he told the Press of Atlantic City. “While there’s been a lot of lip service that ‘We need more rooms,’ the reality is, it’s very hard to operate a non-gaming hotel in the market.”

Hard Rock International was approved for a new casino under the current boutique casino law, but scrapped the project. The full Assembly and Senate still need to vote on the changes to the boutique casino bill.

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