Posted on 05/28/2008 5:26:22 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
'Capitalist' dogs casino about link to bad luck -
ATLANTIC CITY - Al Garrett, who has spent more than three years fighting a statue, thinks he has finally hit on a way to win his cold war.
The statue is of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the communist founder of the Soviet Union. Lenin stands outside the front door of Red Square, the hipper-than-thou, Russian-themed restaurant and bar in The Quarter, the highly capitalistic dining and retail section of Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino and Resort.
And Garrett has objected to the architect of one of history's brutal dictatorships being part of a restaurant's theme statement ever since Lenin's likeness went up early in 2005. Garrett has written letters to the editor. He has made calls to radio talk shows. And he has circulated public petitions demanding that Red Square tear that statue down - or at least move it inside the restaurant, away from where thousands of people walk by it every day.
He doesn't like the idea of Lenin getting a place of honor - or at least high visibility - anywhere in the United States. But it really bugs him that it happened in Atlantic City, just down the White Horse Pike from his Absecon home.
So Garrett, 65, has come up with the ultimate Atlantic City argument as a trump card in his symbolic siege of the statue:
Lenin, he says, is bad luck.
He has been unlucky for the Tropicana, according to Garrett, who points out that the casino has run into several years of troubles since it allowed Lenin to be put on a pedestal. The formerly prosperous casino complex was sold, and after Columbia Sussex Corp. took over in early 2007, the new owners started a round of layoffs that eventually led to much-publicized customer complaints of Trop's rooms being dirty, and plagued by several kinds of bugs and other serious maintenance problems.
New Jersey's Casino Control Commission denied Columbia Sussex a new license last December and ordered the casino sold. Several groups have bid on the property or expressed interest in buying it, but so far, no sale.
"Take that statue out of there and it will change their luck," counsels Garrett, who adds that the way he sees it, the pall of poor mojo extends beyond the people who own the property.
Lenin is also bad luck for the Trop's gamblers, he says, in a bid for public support for his lose-Lenin campaign.
"Write and call the management of the Tropicana," reads a campaign sign that Garrett brings out in public on special occasions, including a recent celebration to mark the opening of the casino's new Havana Rooftop Slots.
The Lenin statue is an "insult ... to our American vets and our troops, and bad luck for you and your customers," Garrett's sign also argues.
So he says Trop's management should be as eager to evict the dictator as he is. Still, a spokeswoman for the casino had nothing to say about Garrett's theory, or his campaign, when a reporter asked for a comment.
But casino security workers told Garrett not to display his sign on Tropicana property when he rolled his wheelchair up next to the Lenin statue the other day. Tropicana security also quickly stopped a photographer for The Press from shooting pictures of Garrett and an ally he has enlisted in his anti-Lenin battle, David Pratt of Atlantic City. (The spokeswoman, Diane Spiers, blamed the photo ban on state rules requiring advance notice to gaming regulators for media pictures shot on casino property.)
Red Square's general manager wasn't so silent about Garrett's lonely cause, though.
"Thanks for the advertising," Joseph Massari told the two statue protesters outside the restaurant.
"The only symbol I'm concerned about is four stars - that's the rating of my restaurant," the executive told a reporter a few minutes later, suggesting that Garrett should find more important causes to worry about.
But Garrett is not deterred. And he expects to win this battle, he says, just as his freedom won out over communism in the Cold War.
"It is uncanny that all these things have happened after they put him up," he said. "You made a bad decision, and you have to live with the consequences."
Or better yet, he hopes, change them.
Wearing t-shirts with Soviet symbols and Che, statues of Lenin, etc.
Why is there “Soviet-chic,” but no “Nazi-chic”?
Because there are still plenty of Commies around, that’s why. Two of them are running for President.
haha I was thinking TROP as we mean it on FR and was wondering why the muslims had a Lenin statue. : )
Ok, I thought someone was finally standing up to some mosque.
Lenin was responsible for the Russian Civil War, which killed 15 million Russians. But he didn’t kill Communists, like Stalin did, so he’s okay in the eyes of the Left.
Imagine there's no statue....
It's easy if you try.....
How about the casino build a place inside for the statue. They can call it the Lenin closet.
don’t know they aren’t doing what we did in Las Vegas - decapitate the statue!
Great restaurant, though. If you get a chance, definitely go. They have the best vodka tasting room in America.
I have zero love for Lenin, but I like the irony of his likeness being used by a capitalist enterprise.
The people who should be objecting a the remaining Marxists in our society.
I saw this USSR s#@t when I was deployed to Uzbekistan in 2003-04. The local souvenir shop had all kinds of Soviet cr@p for sale.
But I was interested only in native Uzbek crafts. Excellent tea sets, and beautiful young Central Asian women. The former were exportable.
But in the yurta there was a T-shirt (in Russian, `futbolka’) that stood out, depicting a fat Russian colonel gazing at a Playboy foldout with the caption,
“I work for the KGB!”
Bad luck is a great angle. But then again, gamblers aren’t superstitious, more than half.
Personally, I think they should put up a statue of Hitler or Pol Pot nearby and let them know that they’ll take it down when Lenin comes down. Basically just rub their noses in the fact that they’re honoring an evil mass murderer.
And yet Westerners cannot understand why Korea and other nations have Nazi themed nightclubs and restaurants. They cannot fathom how anyone could be so dense as to block out from memory the muderous regime they celebrate with their kitch themed business.
Communism ALWAYS gets a pass over here.
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