Carl Icahn Reportedly Shopping Trump Taj Mahal

According to the NewYork Post, billionaire investor Carl Icahn has been talking to gambling firms about the possibility of unloading the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Despite the property’s name, President-Elect Donald Trump does not own the Taj anymore. Icahn was the largest debt-holder of Trump Entertainment Resorts when the company went into bankruptcy in September 2014 and agreed to take control of the casino in February 2016.

The Trump Taj Mahal was once the epicenter for poker on the east coast, serving as the venue for a couple key scenes in the legendary poker film Rounders. It was also the home of the United States Poker Championship for a number of years, a tournament which for a while rivaled most live tourneys outside of the World Series of Poker.

It is now, unfortunately, a ghost town.

When Trump Entertainment Resorts was going through bankruptcy proceedings, the Taj workers in the Unite Here Local 54 union lost pension and healthcare benefits as part of concessions given to Icahn in exchange for a promise of a $100 million cash injection for the casino. He never did invest that money, though, in protest of tax breaks he did not receive and a push by some in the New Jersey legislature to expand casino gambling outside of Atlantic City (the casino expansion referendum was rejected by voters in November).

In 2016, after Icahn took control of the Taj Mahal, the Unite Here Local 54 attempted to negotiate with Icahn Enterprises and the casino’s operator, Tropicana Entertainment (owned by Icahn Enterprises), to restore the lost benefits. The union felt its offer was a win-win, but it was unable to get anywhere with Icahn.

Thus, in July 2016, the about 1,000 union workers, including housekeeping staff and cooks, went on strike. In August, it was announced that the Taj Mahal would close after Labor Day. Tropicana Entertainment President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Rodio blamed it on the striking workers, saying, “Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike we see no path to profitability. Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we have will to have to close the Taj after Labor Day weekend and intend to send WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices to before this weekend.”

The Unite Here Local 54 President Bob McDevitt was outraged, saying in a post on the union’s website:

How petty. I would never have thought Carl Icahn was so one-dimensional. The great deal-maker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes. For a few million bucks he could have had labor peace and a content workforce, but instead he’d rather slam the door shut on these long-term workers just to punish them and attempt to break their strike. There was no element of trying to reach an agreement here on Icahn’s part; it was always “my way or the highway” from the beginning with Icahn. It is the epitome of the playground bully, who picks up his ball and announces he is going home because nobody else would do it his way. It is truly a shame that such an unscrupulous person has control of billions of dollars.

The Trump Taj Mahal closed on October 10^th. But why is it now that Icahn is looking to sell? The answer is likely because the state legislature is trying to stop him from gaming the system. There has been chatter that Icahn would try to re-open the Taj with non-union labor. To prevent this, the state Senate passed a bill in October that would disqualify anyone from holding a casino license for five years if they closed a casino after January 1, 2016. The only one to meet that description is Icahn.

The state Assembly passed the same bill in December, though Governor Chris Christie has yet to provide his signature.

“Casino owners shouldn’t be manipulating the system and exploiting bankruptcy laws as a way to break unions and take away the rights and benefits of the workers,” Senate President Steve Sweeney told the Associated Press. “Atlantic City’s gaming industry is obviously experiencing the difficult challenges of competition from other states, but the answer is not to engage in practices that punish the workers.”