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Casino Vendors Affected by Casino Shutdown

Atlantic City hosts a huge number of people who make a living indirectly through the casinos, like the suppliers for instance.

Now these suppliers and vendors are suffering the effect of the casino shutdown that started Wednesday morning.

Greg Batz for instance handles accounts for Warren Distributing Co., a beer distributor. The casinos in Atlantic City normally purchase 500 to 1,000 cases of beer everyday, but now with the casinos being virtual ghost towns, nobody is guzzling the beers up. Batz estimates Warren's daily loss at $12,000 to $15,000.

"I was in the casinos yesterday with a person from Miller Brewing Co., and we thought maybe some of the restaurants and bars would possibly be open," Batz said Friday, "but no, it was really quiet."

Much more are affected as the Casino Control Commission has approved more than 14,000 vendors to sell to the AC's 12 casinos.

Hossein Amani owner of Paramount Caviar, in a normal business week would have shipped 15 to 20 pounds of caviar to Atlantic City, about 5 percent of the Long Island City, N.Y. firm's total. Now he's sold nothing.

"We all got hit this week. It doesn't matter if you are a worker or a businessman. The labor force, the businesses, the casinos, the caviar: this is lost revenue that's never going to come back," he said.

Pleasantville's Globe Vending Co. handles vending machines and distributes cigarettes at nine casinos. According to General Manager Dave Kleinschrodt, as a result of the shutdown, two of its 28 workers had to be laid-off.

"It was a tremendous loss because whenever you hear about the casinos closing, you never hear about what happens to the little guys, you only hear about the casinos," he said. "It's tremendous, it's huge."

"When they shut down, we in essence shut down, too," said Jon Paone, who rents out limousines and vans.

Angelica Mora probably feels the effect more palpably in her flower business. Her flowers have a very short shelf life, and she estimated that her losses could amount to $30,000.

"I got flowers coming in from Holland on a standard order, so they come, ... and now I can't sell them."