Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or what’s happening in the region. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly

The news cycle created by Gov. Christie’s plan to form a partnership with Atlantic City government to clean up the town and create a more family-friendly atmosphere continues. AC Weekly columnist David Spatz weighs in this week and AC Weekly reporter Mike Pritchard has more coverage of the plan.

Atlantic City has been seriously hurt by the downturn on the economy. Gaming is a business that is always going to take a hit in bad economic times since most people gamble with the money they can afford to lose and a lot of people don’t have extra money these days.

Competition from neighboring states has done the most damage, as the Pennsylvania and Delaware casinos continue to draw patrons away from our region.

As I noted in an earlier blog, Christie’s “dying town” quote sent a lot a writers running to their laptops to declare that it might be too late to salvage the seaside resort.

I grew up in this area and I’ve heard the “AC is dead” declaration plenty of times. I’m 56 and believe me, I saw Atlantic City when it was really a dead town, in the late 1960s and early ’70s. The Steel Pier was shuttered, the Boardwalk was falling apart and nobody wanted to be in the Inlet section of town anytime of the day.

People still came for the beach and a few good restaurants, but AC was just a shell of its former glory as the “World’s Playground” from the turn of the century to the 1940s. That period also included its infamy as a mobster’s paradise in the Roaring Twenties, a period that will be revived when the series Boardwalk Empire debuts on HBO in September.

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Gov. Christie’s desire to swoop in and take over the casino business … er, I mean form a partnership with Atlantic City’s local government, has brought out the talons of the national press. Go here for the story in AC Weekly.

You might think Atlantic City had race riots every other day or that Nucky Johnson was still in charge of the rackets in town, the way the press has been trashing Atlantic City as a dying town. Of course Gov. Christie said it first. Gee, where have we heard that before?

A few recent quotes:

“If nothing is done, then Atlantic City will continue on its downward spiral to becoming ‘Camden East.’” — PhillytoPhilly.com

“It was a familiar scenario in a city where political careers crash with the predictability of waves at high tide: a mayor under fire, accusations of waste and ineptitude, outside authorities threatening to step in – and now, initiating that process.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

“Burn down the city and start over.” — comment on NJ.com

When you live in an area your perspective is different. My niece Jessica has been attending George Washington University the last three years. She has on-campus housing five blocks from the White House. She told me, “I see somebody get robbed every day. And I live in what is considered a good neighborhood. I feel safer in Atlantic City.”

Once the trash talking starts, it is hard to turn off the tap. Atlantic City has problems, but to say that it is beyond hope is ridiculous.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Food Network star chef Guy Fieri, who will be attending the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival next weekend. “A.C. is absolutely one of my favorite places to go. Put it in capital letters, double underline it. It has a small town charm but with big city opportunity. You get huge headliners that come to A.C., you have good food, you have good people, you’ve got the beach . . .”

This Friday Bill Clinton will appear at the Atlantic City Hilton hotel & casino as part of the property’s Summer Speaker Series. He will also be making history. Read more about it here.

We found the following pic on the Web and had to share. Maybe Clinton should have came to the Hilton this past weekend when Cheech & Chong were in town.

The former president and the current secretary of state.

Picture from house.gov Web site

New Jersey Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., has vowed to fight President Barack Obama’s plan to allow offshore drilling for oil along the Atlantic Coast.

Urging the Obama Administration to reinstate a moratorium on offshore drilling, Congressman Pallone (6th District) issued the following statement on Wednesday:

“Allowing any offshore drilling on the Atlantic Coast is an invitation to an environmental catastrophe that would have severe economic consequences for New Jersey. The coastal beaches and ocean waters of the Jersey Shore are environmental treasures that anchor the state’s tourism industry and possess special meaning as a part of New Jersey’s identity. An oil spill anywhere along the coast could cause severe environmental damage to fisheries, popular beaches and wildlife. In turn, local communities that rely on seasonal tourism activities would suffer just as the state’s economy would suffer by any reductions in tourism. The tourism industry employs more than 500,000 people in New Jersey.

“Oil drills off the coast of nearby states still pose a threat to New Jersey. The ocean waters don’t respect state borders and neither would spilled oil. Any drilling off the coast of Delaware would be close enough to New Jersey for spills to easily reach our beaches. We shouldn’t jeopardize the environment or the regional economy for the sake of more oil. We need an energy policy that is far sighted, that is safe for the environment and good for the economy.

“I have fought for years to prevent any and all offshore drilling along the Eastern Coast and it’s a fight I’m going to continue. I am the sponsor of legislation – the Clean Ocean & Safe Tourism Anti-Drilling Act, or COAST bill – that would permanently ban drilling in all North- and Mid-Atlantic states from Maine to Virginia.  It would prohibit the Department of the Interior from issuing leases for exploration, development, or production of oil, natural gas and any other minerals in the area.

“I am opposed to any preliminary activities or studies that could lead to exploration or drilling. None of these activities was allowed under the moratorium that was in place by executive order until President Bush lifted it during the final months of his administration. I believe President Obama should reinstate the moratorium.

“I will fight for my COAST bill and for its goals of protecting and preserving the Jersey Shore and the Atlantic Coast.”

Meanwhile, the popular political blog The Hill reports that Pallone isn’t the only Democrat opposing the plan:

“Ten Senate Democrats who represent coastal states recently wrote a letter to Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the architects of the Senate’s climate bill, saying they will oppose it if it greatly expands offshore drilling.”

Partying like its 1999 has a lot of appeal and we have to hand it to The Pool at Harrah’s for coming up with the idea of a back to the 90s party Thursday (March 4). Pop in a Backstreet Boys CD, bring your Pokemon cards and laugh off the Y2K bug that freaked us out and then fizzled out.

But where we really have to give Harrah’s props is their choice of the ultimate ‘90s icon. Yes, it’s the dancing baby, first made famous on Ally McBeal and then popping up pretty much everywhere. Nothing says end of the Clinton era more than the dancing baby. So put on your cargo pants, tickle an Elmo and dance with the baby here and then again at The Pool.

The 1999 party at The Pool is brought to you by Dave Pena, the creator of Boogie Nights ‘70s and ‘80s Dance Club and Planet Rose Karaoke Lounge. The party will turn back the clock to celebrate the final decade of the 20th century — the heyday of Bill Clinton, Pam Anderson, Marky Mark in his Calvins, Biggie Smalls, Nirvana, Titanic, Ricky Martin, N’Sync, Cindy Crawford, Beavis and Butthead, Marilyn Manson, the original 90210, Minnie Me, the OJ trial, Arsenio Hall, and so much more. Pena aims to pull out all the stops to create a memorable and exciting salute to the nineties.
“I loved the nineties, and now that its 2010 we can look back with some sense of nostalgia for all the crazy things that happened and all the music we loved back then.” But as for what we can expect, Pena is being deliberately hush-hush. “I want to keep a lot of what’s planned for the 1999 party a secret so that it’s a real surprise for people when they come through the door. But one thing I can tell you is that it’s time to raise your gin and juice, and do the Urkel Dance while a sexy schoolgirl hits you baby one more time.”

Monopoly, the board game based on Atlantic City’s 1930s neighborhoods, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. But if the game were constructed today, it would look much different.

According to a feature on dailyfinance.com, Baltic, one of Monopoly’s two cheapest properties, borders the Sheraton Hotel, which charges $170 to $259 a night, making it one of the more costly locations in Atlantic City. Even the Pacific/Rhode Island Avenue region, which includes all three of Monopoly’s bargain-priced light-blue properties, is among the city’s most valuable areas.

Some of Monopoly’s streets don’t even exist in today’s city as Illinois Avenue is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and St. Charles Place has been torn down and replaced with the Showboat casino.

Monopoly also imitates a past era of public transportation. By 1987 all of four of its railroads had been surpassed by Atlantic City’s plethora of bus and train choices.

To get a more complete summary of the differences between Monopoly’s 1930s rendition of Atlantic City and today’s actual rendition, click here.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

The Tropicana is worried about your poker game and wants you to get better. They figure all it will take is a little poker boot camp. So to help, the casino will hold a World Poker Tour Boot Camp April 9-10 taught by poker pros Kathy Liebert, Nick Brancato, Rick Fuller and Nick Binger.

In a press release, the Tropicana says the about $1,895 camp “will teach players of all skill ranges how to become a consistently winning player. The pros will share their secrets of tournament play and help players learn to build a big stack, adjust play based on the rounds, learn to play based on their and their opponents stack size, use your table image to your advantage and not be fooled by your opponent and know how to get correct pot odds and keep your opponents from getting them.”

Kathy Liebert

The camp includes breakfast and lunch each day, an eight-and-a-half-hour lecture with the four tour professionals, two and a half hours of lab instructions, a private tournament on Friday night where the winner will receive entrance into the Alumni World Poker Tour Boot Camp, and two hours of sit-n-go tournaments on Saturday.

To register for the World Poker Tour Boot Camp at the Tropicana Casino & Resort go here or call 1-866-WPT-BOOT.

Tropicana Turf Club members can also win a spot in the boot camp by playing in the Poker Room. For info visit www.tropicana.net

UNITE HERE Local 54 has finished up its “Flash Mob” campaign in cities such as Philadelphia and Baltimore and is bringing its act home to Atlantic City. At 12:30-2:30pm. today (Feb. 18), union members will perform for home crowds at the local’s headquarters at 203 N. Sovereign Ave. in A.C.

Local 54 performers

If you don’t know what a flash mob is, it’s basically a spontaneous gathering of people in public who break out into a performance or other attention-getting activity. Local 54’s flash mobs have had a little more purpose and have been designed to promote the city.

Calling it “guerilla marketing,”union members toured around Philadelphia, Scranton, Allentown, Baltimore and Dover the past few weeks. The effort was designed to attract attention to Atlantic City’s casinos, boardwalk and hospitality businesses.

“Our union is made up of about 14,000 members,” says Raphine Smith, a bartender at Tropicana and a 15-year member of UNITE HERE Local 54 in a press release. “We’re doormen, food service employees, bartenders, and hospitality workers at Atlantic City’s biggest hotels and casinos. We wanted to do something fun to remind people about AC and the Jersey Shore as a place to visit.”

You can catch a clip of some Local 54 performers here.

Jeff Madsen

While “snowmageddon” was the big story around the region this weekend, poker pro Jeff Madsen generated some heat just in the nick of time Friday by winning $625,000 in the Borgata Winter Open’s main event.
Madsen’s win came Friday evening, just about when the flakes started to fall.
“It feels good,” Madsen tells The Borgata’s poker blog after beating Sirous Jamshidi (Broomall, PA) heads-up to take the title and the first place prize of $625,006. “It takes a while for it to set in, but in a few days I’ll look back on it. It was a really good tournament.”
Madsen was the tournament’s chip leader after day 2 and Jamshidi had the chip lead going into the final day. The two ended up playing the final hands for more than an hour heads-up. Finally, with about 10 big blinds left, Janshidi went all in for about $1.9 million in tournament chips with queen and deuce of spades. Madsen called with king of hearts, 10 of diamonds.
The board came out jack of diamonds, seven of hearts, six of clubs, king of diamonds, five of clubs, giving Madsen a pair of kings and the win.
Madsen, a two time bracelet winner at the WSOP now has more than $3 million in tournament cashes.
“I’ve had success in the past,” Madsen says, “but it feels good to get these big wins and to continue to prove myself in the poker world.”
Here’s a list of the final table payouts:
1. Jeff Madsen, $625,006
2. Sirous Jamshidi, $367,794
3. Tom Marchese, $190,027
4. Barkley Hamilton, $165,508
5. Nick Kamen, $140,988
6. Al Grimes, $116,468
7. Dave Fox, $91,949
8. Ross Mallor, $67,429
9. Chan Pelton, $49,039
10. Matt Matros, $31,876
For a recap of the last table action go here.

Jeffrey Madsen

Poker pro Jeffrey Madsen of Las Vegas is the chip leader at The Borgata Winter Open’s main event after Day 2. Madsen ended the day with $880,700 in tournament chips. Madsen won two WSOP bracelets in 2006 and has more than $2.2 million in tournament earnings in his career.
He’s looking to cash in on the tournament’s $625,000 winning payout from the about $2.45 million prize pool. Entering Day 3 today (Feb. 3) 134 players remain out of a field of 766 entries.
Pro Rahjesh Vorha of Pompano Beach Fla. is second with $591,500 in tournament chips. David Cairns, a pro from Toronto is at No. 3 with $492,700. And since we’ve highlighted his appearance in A.C., Bryn Mawr Pa.’s Dan Shak  is at 27th with $252,000.
The tournament will pay the top 72 finishers. Go here to follow the action,