Most area residents by now are aware of the circuitous route the City Council of Atlantic City took to get right back to where it was in the first place regarding a proposed total smoking ban in its 11 casinos.
Council passed a total smoking ban ordinance in April that was supposed to take effect Oct. 15, but the depressed economy that caused an even steeper casino revenue decline than what was due to increased competition prompted Council to change its collective mind. The total ban was rescinded, but the legal process needed to revise city ordinances required the ban to be implemented for roughly three weeks, from late October until Nov. 16. The ban expired one minute after midnight Sunday, and gamblers can light up again in designated areas constituting 25 percent of the casino gaming floor. That’s the precise arrangement the city had before talk of the total ban first took place.

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The 2008 celebration of the 25th anniversary of the film Eddie and the Cruisers continues this Friday with a concert at the Hard Rock Cafe, located at the Trump Taj Mahal.

The show, which will feature Jersey shore rockers the Billy Walton Band with Richie Taz, will include a very special appearance by saxman Michael “Tunes” Antunes. Antunes (pictured) is a long-time member of John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, who did the music for the fictional band of the title in the film. Antunes also appeared in the movie, which was based on a book by author P.F. Kluge and filmed partially in Somers Point and other local areas in 1982.

Tickets to Friday night’s show at the Hard Rock, presented by Tony Mart’s, are just $5. The show starts at 8pm and runs till 1am off the A.C. Boardwalk.

That morning, local radio station WIBG will feature interviews with people connected to the movie between 9:30 and 11am.

AC Weekly featured a story on the silver anniversary of the film back in September.

According to a press release sent out by the South Jersey Transportation Authority (SJTA), a toll increase will go into effect tomorrow at 12:01am (tonight, after midnight). Rates will increase on all of the Atlantic City Expressway’s toll ramps and plazas.

All ramps that are currently 25 cents will go up to 40 cents; all 50-cent ramps will increase to 75 cents. The toll at Egg Harbor will jump a buck from $2 to $3. The Pleasantville plaza’s toll will increase from 50 cents to 75 cents.

“The estimated $205 million generated from the toll increase will fund regional transportation projects,” according to the SJTA press release. These projects include widening the Expressway between the Garden State Parkway and Route 73 and A.C. International Airport “improvement projects.”

Aside from the recent drop in prices at the pump, here’s the good news:

A 25 percent discount on toll rates will be offered for E-ZPass users traveling towards Atlantic City (eastbound through Pleasantville and Egg Harbor toll plazas) through May 2009 on Friday and Saturday evenings between 5-7pm.

Several years ago, before he decided to run for president, Barack Obama struck a deal to have his life filmed as a documentary by actor Edward Norton’s production company, Class 5 Films. HBO has just announced that it will present the film to air on the network this spring.
Filming will continue through the president-elect’s inauguration. Amy Rice and Alicia Sams are directing the picture. They began shooting footage before Obama’s declaration of candidacy.
Norton told Variety that the idea for the film came during a chat between Norton, his Class 5 partners Bill Migliore and Stuart Blumberg and the directors right after Obama raised his national profile with a memorable speech during the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
“We were all so struck by Barack’s speech and talked about how exciting it was to see someone from our generation, not our parents’, make his presence felt in such an inspiring way,” Norton says. “It was akin to the way I remembered my dad describing how he felt when Kennedy gave his inauguration speech.”

Mitch Mitchell, the drummer in the groundbreaking 1960s trio the Jimi Hendrix Experience died at the age of 62 on Tuesday. Sources say he died of “natural causes.” He was found around 3am in his hotel room in downtown Portland, Ore., according to reports. A native of London, Mitchell had recently finished an American tour with Experience Hendrix, a concert series celebrating “the legacy of Jimi Hendrix.”
The Experience Hendrix tour, with Mitchell in the line-up, stopped at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in October 2007.
To read more about Mitchell, check out this post on the U.K.’s Guardian site.

After last Tuesday’s election results were finally certified yesterday, Lorenzo Langford has once again been officially voted in as the mayor of Atlantic City. As the AP reports, Langford was sworn in today.

A ceremonial swearing in is scheduled for tomorrow at noon.

The Tropicana had its 4th annual tree-lighting ceremony Tuesday at The Quarter. Now through the holidays, the dazzling 100,000 LED lights will be put through a computer generated dance with music every hour. Until you can get there to see it in person, here are some pics of the show.

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This Friday, Nov. 14, the Fall ‘08 edition of Billy Crosby’s “Hoops & Heroes” Community Basketball Challenge will take place at the Uptown School Complex in Atlantic City, starting at 5pm. This fun and festive event benefits the Southern Branch of the Community Food Bank of NJ and the Marine Corps’ Toys For Tots.
Check it out with the entire family and enjoy the hoops excitement and family fun plus a halftime of entertainment featuring a guest DJ. Doors will open at 5pm, with open court for the kids to vent some energy and win donated prizes.

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As the Associated Press reported yesterday, times have been tough in Atlantic City recently — and that was even before the October casino revenue numbers came out today.

As AC Weekly columnist Pinky Kravitz wrote about back in his Oct. 2 column many have lost their jobs in the local casino industry alone, the development of at least two big-time casino mega resorts — which could help create more jobs and boost the city’s room inventory — have been put on hold and many local businesses from restaurants to real estate agencies are experiencing difficult financial times.

Although the local casinos have suffered revenue declines this year, when the Borgata, one of the most successful casinos in Atlantic City, recently laid off 400 employees last week, that was a tell tale sign that gloomy conditions were still ahead.

As J. Carlos Tolosa, Eastern Division president of Harrah’s Entertainment, told the Associated Press today, “I truly don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet.”

Is there currently a silver lining to any of this? Reports the AP in the previously linked article:

“Though still high, the 9.9 percent decline actually represents progress when compared with the 15.1 percent plunge revenues took in September, the biggest one-month decline in the 30-year history of casino gambling in Atlantic City.”

The goodwill honeymoon generated by the World Champion Phillies, which enveloped the Delaware Valley and put a happy face on Philadelphia’s fan community, is officially over. It ended when Andy Reid decided to ignore his interpretation of the West Coast offense, the “I hate to run the football even when it makes sense” version, and ran the ball twice in a row in a situation that screamed for a short yardage pass. Feel free to quote a specific, relevant portion of Chase Utley’s podium remarks.

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