THE BIGGEST MOB HIT IN YEARS
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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>BIGGEST</strong><br />
<strong>MOB</strong> <strong>HIT</strong> <strong>IN</strong><br />
<strong>YEARS</strong>.<br />
Now Available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com<br />
and wherever books are sold.<br />
Also available as an E-Book for Kindle and Nooks<br />
Www.themaf iaprince.com
may 2013<br />
HOW ATLANTIC CITY BLEW IT<br />
<strong>THE</strong> BIG HUSTLE<br />
B Y G E O R G E A N A S T A S I A
PROUDLY SERV<strong>IN</strong>G ATLANTIC CITY S<strong>IN</strong>CE 2001<br />
~ ~ ~<br />
CRIM<strong>IN</strong>AL FAMILY CIVIL IMMIGRATION<br />
a full service litigation firm<br />
when results matter
JERSEY SHORE<br />
WATERPROOF<strong>IN</strong>G<br />
“3rd Generation Family Owned and Operated”<br />
• Interior / Exterior Drains<br />
• Foundation Failures<br />
• Wall Coatings<br />
• Crack Injections<br />
• Historic Restorations<br />
• Water Extraction / Drying<br />
• 24/7 Emergency Service<br />
NJ License 13VH05717800<br />
MOLD REMEDIATION<br />
Some mold can produce allergies, irritants and in some cases<br />
a potentially toxic chemical substance as mycotaxins.<br />
• N.A.M.P . Certified<br />
• Mold Testing and Free Evaluations<br />
• Specializing in Hurricane Sandy Affected Properties<br />
• Professional, Reliable & Friendly Service<br />
LOOK NO FUR<strong>THE</strong>R! CALL US TODAY, BREA<strong>THE</strong> BETTER TOMORROW!<br />
609-823-1302<br />
www.jerseyshorewaterproofing.com<br />
4 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
table of contents VOL. 5 ISSUE 5 • May 2013<br />
in this issue...<br />
3 Publisher’s Letter<br />
6 PAGE 6<br />
8 The Raw Feed<br />
Juicy news from our undercover journalist<br />
10 Hello, My Name Is...<br />
Will Pauls, Republican candidate for Atlantic County Freeholder At-Large<br />
18 VET ROCK 2013<br />
Danielle Davies<br />
18 FASHION EDITORIAL<br />
Raina Tallent - Bully Proof<br />
20 20 Questions<br />
Nynell Langford Submits to our Q&A<br />
22 Who’s Who at the Jersey Shore<br />
27 out to lunch<br />
Anthony Previti on his Experience on Atlantic City Beerfest<br />
28 MANGIA<br />
Smitty’s Clam Bar<br />
31 Let the Sun Shine In<br />
Lloyd D. Levenson<br />
34 HOW ATLANTIC CITY BLEW IT, <strong>THE</strong> BIG HUSTLE<br />
George Anastasia<br />
43 Quadriceps Sparing Knee Replacement<br />
Dr. Stephen J. Zabinski<br />
44 DEAR MOM, one year since her tragic death<br />
Kimberly Pack (daughter of April Kauffman)<br />
46 hit me!<br />
fighting the las vegas mob by the numbers<br />
Danielle Gomes<br />
54 Fitness Editorial<br />
Julianne Dods on Swim Safety: Know the Water, Know Your Limits<br />
55 Nutrition Editorial<br />
Nancy Adler talks Vitamins: An Investment for Every Body<br />
56 Family Editorial<br />
Danielle Davies - This Mother’s Day, A Wish For Us All<br />
58 Looking Back with Bill Kelly<br />
Meeting Jimmy Buffett<br />
60 Political Editorial<br />
Harry Hurley talks The Law of Unintended Consequences<br />
61 The History of Atlantic City Electric<br />
Ken Calemmo and Kristine Kodytek<br />
Spectacular Waterfront Dining<br />
Fresh Fish Specialties<br />
Prime Rib & Steaks<br />
Hot Chocolate Lava Cake<br />
Relax in an atmosphere of comfortable elegance while you savor<br />
the culinary delights that make Chart House legendary.<br />
Superb Private Event Space • Complimentary Valet Parking<br />
FANTASTIC HAPPY HOUR<br />
Huron Ave. & Brigantine Blvd • In the Golden Nugget<br />
609.340.5030 • Please call for seasonal hours of operation<br />
Online reservations at chart-house.com<br />
Luxury Waterfront<br />
a.C. SkyLine<br />
1960 W RiveRside dRive, AtlAntic city • $599,000<br />
Steve Mento<br />
Realtor Associate<br />
Top Producer since 2009<br />
Million Dollar Plus Club<br />
9218 Ventnor Avenue,<br />
Margate, NJ 08402<br />
Direct: 609-271-1953<br />
609-822-4200<br />
stevementorealtor@gmail.com<br />
“Conducting your next<br />
move in harmony with<br />
your needs”<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 5
President / CEO<br />
Founder and Publisher of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
il capo di tutti capi<br />
James J. Leonard Jr., Esq.<br />
Editor-in-Chief<br />
Underboss<br />
Rebecca M. Leonard<br />
Director of Operations<br />
Kenneth M. Warren Jr., Esq.<br />
Creative Director<br />
Michael A. Porto<br />
Copy Editor<br />
Danielle Davies<br />
Chief Photographer<br />
Tom Briglia<br />
Features Writers<br />
George Anastasia • Danielle Gomes • Kimberly Pack<br />
Contributors<br />
Nancy Adler<br />
Ken Calemmo<br />
Danielle Davies<br />
Julie Dods<br />
Harry Hurley<br />
Now Available<br />
at Atlantic County<br />
Administrative Staff<br />
Shernita Demby<br />
For inquiries or comments, please email us at<br />
boardwalkjournal@gmail.com<br />
www.boardwalkjournal.com<br />
facebook.com/boardwalkjournal<br />
BoardwlkJournal<br />
The Boardwalk Journal ® is published by<br />
Boardwalk Media Group, LLC, ©2013<br />
1200 Atlantic Avenue<br />
Atlantic City, NJ 08401<br />
609.345.0500<br />
all rights reserved<br />
Bill Kelly<br />
Lloyd D. Levenson, Esq.<br />
Constance McNelis<br />
Anthony Previti<br />
Raina Tallent<br />
Your Business<br />
Will Thank You.<br />
For rates, email us at<br />
BoardwalkJournal@gmail.com<br />
www.boardwalkjournal.com<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 7
PokerStar’s bid for the Atlantic Club has been halted, as has the purchase of<br />
Trump Plaza by the California based Meruelo Group, but Hard Rock International<br />
is moving full speed ahead with its plans to invest $100 million into the<br />
Meadowlands Racetrack in North Jersey, adding fuel to the fire that casino<br />
gambling will no longer be exclusive to Atlantic City sometime after 2015.<br />
Stay tuned to how this plays out, but don’t be surprised to see casino<br />
gambling at the Meadowlands or on the Camden Waterfront before 2020…<br />
It has been one year since the cold-blooded killing of local talk<br />
radio host/veteran’s advocate, April Kauffman, in her Linwood home.<br />
Despite not making an arrest, investigators are refusing to call the<br />
case cold and have pledged to bring the individual responsible to<br />
justice and to prosecute anyone else who may have given assistance<br />
to the killer, prior to or after this selfish and cowardly act.<br />
Freeholder Joe McDevitt is making a lot of noise these days, much to the<br />
chagrin of some Atlantic County Republicans who feel that McDevitt’s<br />
scorched earth tactics are not only detrimental to the unity of the party,<br />
but are sour grapes coming from an incumbent candidate who was bested fair<br />
and square at the Party’s convention in March by candidate Will Pauls.<br />
McDevitt, who has been very vocal about what he perceives to be a grave<br />
injustice committed against him, bypassed the March convention, a process<br />
he has since decried as being anything but fair and square, and instead<br />
will challenge Pauls in what has now become a hotly contested June Primary.<br />
McDevitt’s off-scripted rants against some members of his own party, namely<br />
County Chairman Keith Davis, have become the subject of tremendous fodder<br />
on Facebook and on several local talk radio shows. Win, lose or draw come<br />
June, Joe McDevitt has made himself the most talked about candidate this<br />
Primary season. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be<br />
seen, but either way, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of Joe McDevitt …<br />
Speaking of politics and Facebook fodder, one cannot ignore the<br />
tremendous efforts being expounded by Atlantic City resident Warren<br />
Massey on Facebook in his efforts to unseat Mayor Lorenzo Langford in<br />
favor of mayoral candidate Dave Davidson, who can count Massey as his<br />
number one and most vocal supporter. Massey, like the aforementioned<br />
McDevitt, has taken to Facebook in an effort to get his message out,<br />
and you get the impression that like McDevitt, win, lose or draw come<br />
June, we haven’t heard the last of Dave Davidson and Warren Massey …<br />
Tickets are still available for the May 31st Deana Sings Dino concert at<br />
Caesars starring Deana Martin, the daughter of the legendary Rat Packer,<br />
and presented by the Schultz-Hill Foundation and corporate benefactor<br />
Cooper Levenson. For more information visit www.schultz-hill.org...<br />
8 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Nobody<br />
does it<br />
Better!<br />
"Eight weeks after Dr. Zabinski<br />
performed my surgery, I climbed<br />
3,500 feet to the peak of<br />
the Appalachian Trail<br />
in Rangeley, Maine."<br />
– Gregory Gregory<br />
Anterior Total Hip Replacement<br />
Performed by renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stephen J. Zabinski<br />
at Shore Medical Center’s state-of-the-art Surgical Pavilion, this<br />
new tissue-sparing alternative to traditional hip replacement surgery<br />
works between the muscles and tissues without detaching them<br />
from either the hip or thighbones and provides:<br />
Less Pain Faster Recovery Improved Mobility<br />
For your consultation or appointment,<br />
please call Dr. Zabinski at 609.927.1991.<br />
609.653.3500 | ShoreMedicalCenter.org<br />
100 Medical Center Way, Somers Point, NJ<br />
Our Passion Makes Us The Best<br />
MEDICAL<br />
CENTER SM<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 9
hello<br />
my name is<br />
Will Pauls<br />
WILL PAULS,<br />
Republican candidate for Atlantic<br />
County Freeholder At-Large<br />
I’m Will Pauls, the recently nominated Republican<br />
candidate for Atlantic County Freeholder At-Large.<br />
I couldn’t be prouder to run on a ticket led by<br />
Governor Chris Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno that<br />
includes distinguished public servants like Frank Balles<br />
for Senate, John Amodeo and Chris Brown for Assembly,<br />
as well as John Bettis and Rich Dase for Freeholder. This<br />
is a critical and defining moment for our region and as<br />
such we must elect the very best leaders at every level of<br />
government.<br />
For more than half a century I’ve lived right here in<br />
Atlantic County, through the good times and the bad. Over<br />
the last few years, we’ve all watched South Jersey struggle<br />
as our region continues to face some of the highest<br />
unemployment rates in New Jersey.<br />
I believe we need a strong Freeholder At-Large who<br />
will work with our local officials all day, every day, and not<br />
just in an election year. The stakes are simply too high<br />
for our region to continue with business as usual and<br />
accept the status quo simply because it’s politically more<br />
convenient.<br />
We’re fighting to preserve the American Dream<br />
so our children and grandchildren can have the same<br />
opportunities we had. Atlantic County can absolutely<br />
still offer that. I believe in our region, its people, and its<br />
promise for the future.<br />
Growing up in Atlantic County, Mom and Dad instilled<br />
in all of us a love of God, family and country, as well as a<br />
strong commitment to our local community.<br />
Shortly after graduating from Absegami High School<br />
in 1973, I married my high school sweetheart, Ginny. Ginny<br />
and I built upon the foundations that our parents provided<br />
towards living out the American Dream. Together we<br />
raised three children, our two sons Shane and John, and<br />
our daughter Jennifer. We’ve also been blessed with four<br />
grandchildren whom we adore.<br />
For 20 years, I worked as a Journeyman for the<br />
Atlantic City Ironworkers, Local 350. As a Journeyman, I<br />
saw the building of the Casino Industry first hand. These<br />
were exciting times for our region and its residents. We had<br />
great hopes for the future and the opportunity to earn a<br />
decent living in order to support our families.<br />
Iron working can be a dangerous occupation. When I<br />
started working in the steel industry, we didn’t have all the<br />
safeguards and regulations we have today. While we have<br />
made great strides in enhancing safety for our workers,<br />
there were times when you didn’t know if you were going<br />
to make it home to your family. The hard reality is that I<br />
have lost some dear friends over the years—whether in day<br />
to day development projects or during emergency repairs<br />
and reconstruction efforts.<br />
That’s why in addition to serving on the Atlantic<br />
County Republican Committee, I am currently the President<br />
of the South Jersey Building Trades Council and the<br />
Ironworkers Local 350. I’ve been honored and privileged<br />
to represent these hard working men and women who<br />
have literally helped build and sometimes rebuild our<br />
community.<br />
I’m also active in and have enjoyed serving on the<br />
Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, Atlantic<br />
County Planning Board, Regional Development Authority<br />
of Atlantic County, and the Atlantic County Community<br />
Development Corporation. Throughout the years, I’ve<br />
developed strong working relationships with many<br />
business and community leaders in every corner of Atlantic<br />
County.<br />
I love Atlantic County and I wouldn’t live anywhere<br />
else. Fighting for you is my way of giving back to the<br />
community that has given so much to me and my<br />
family.<br />
Whether it was covering shifts at the family restaurant<br />
or later working on structural steel high above Atlantic<br />
City, I have spent my entire life in the private sector. These<br />
experiences have provided me with the understanding of<br />
not only the challenges facing working families, but what it<br />
takes to create family sustaining jobs in Atlantic County.<br />
I know the issues and I’ll bring fresh ideas, a strong<br />
work ethic and the same passion I’ve always had for<br />
Atlantic County to the job of Freeholder. I’ll work hard each<br />
and every day to ensure Atlantic County gets back on its<br />
feet and thrives once again. You deserve nothing less.<br />
10 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 11
Caesars executives Warren Bader and Jerry Eisenband<br />
Blow Bubbles for Autism on the Boardwalk<br />
Photo: Tom Briglia/PhotoGraphics<br />
Howard Weiss, Regional Director of Nightlife at Caesars,<br />
with socialite Paris Hilton<br />
Photo: Tom Briglia/PhotoGraphics<br />
Johnny’s<br />
Restaurant & Bar<br />
Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner<br />
Weekly Entertainment:<br />
Phone 609/822-1789 for more info<br />
9407 Ventnor Avenue, Margate<br />
www.johnnyscafeventnor.com<br />
12 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Atlantic Limousine GM Johnny DeAngelis; Harry’s Oyster Bar & Seafood GM, Kim<br />
Brownell; Delilah’s Den Dancer, Natalia Alberto; Owner of Savage Men, Tracy James<br />
Photo: Michael A. Porto/Boardwalk Journal<br />
Actress Tara Reid hosted a party at “The Pool After Dark”, Harrah’s Atlantic City<br />
Photo: Tom Briglia/PhotoGraphics<br />
GM of Delilah’s Den, Vincent Magna (center) with (l to r) Natalia Alberto, Kerri Cooper,<br />
Angelia Panse and Amanda Fritz of Delilah’s Den Photo: Michael A. Porto/Boardwalk Journal<br />
The Atlantic City Jitney Association<br />
serves the needs of the local community as well as the millions of visitors to Atlantic City.<br />
We provide convenient, on-time transportation to various points in Atlantic City.<br />
Jitney Routes<br />
Route 1<br />
New Hampshire Ave. to Jackson Ave. via Pacific Ave.<br />
Route 2<br />
Golden Nugget, Harrah’s, Borgata via Delaware Ave. to Pacific Ave.<br />
Route 3<br />
Marina Area-Borgata, Harrah’s, Golden Nugget via Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<br />
Blvd. to Inlet on Pacific Ave. New Convention Center/Train Station, Bus Station<br />
Route 4<br />
New Convention Center/Train Station, Bus Station via Pacific Ave.<br />
from Jackson Ave. to Indiana Ave.<br />
1616 Pacific ave., atlantic cit y, nJ • www.Jitneyac.com<br />
The Men of Savage Men teaming up with Atlantic Limo, Delilah’s Den & Harry’s Oyster<br />
Bar for Atlantic City’s Ultimate Bachelor & Bachelorette Kick-off Party<br />
Photo: Michael A. Porto/Boardwalk Journal<br />
For information about Regular Jitney Service, Train Station Jitney<br />
Service, Lost and Found or Ticket Programs, call<br />
609-344-8642<br />
Excellent Wedding Photography<br />
Affordable Packages for Every Budget<br />
PhotoGraphics Photography<br />
609-926-1212<br />
www.weddingsbyphotographics.com<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 13
NaNcy adler NutritioN<br />
It’s not a Diet.<br />
It’s a Lifestyle.<br />
Read Nancy’s column on page 55<br />
www.nancyadlernutrition.com<br />
401 New Road, Suite 103 • Linwood , NJ 08221<br />
For an appointment, please call (609) 653-4900<br />
the Jessie O’ Fishing & Cruising Fleet<br />
The Fleet That Can’t Be Beat!<br />
Deep Sea FiShing on the JeSSie o’ ii<br />
Back Bay FiShing on JeSSie o’S FiSh n’ Fun<br />
OCEAN & BAY FISH<strong>IN</strong>G • PRIVATE PARTIES<br />
D<strong>IN</strong>NER CRUISES • CATER<strong>IN</strong>G & DJ SERVICES<br />
The Jessie O’ Fleet is available for all occasions, fishing or cruising. Visit us at www.jessieofishing.com<br />
Captain Andy’s Marina<br />
9317 Amherst Ave., Margate, New Jersey<br />
(609) 412-3635<br />
14 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Get Your Shade On<br />
retractable awnings<br />
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Enhance your<br />
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The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 15
By Danielle Davies<br />
Almost 40 years after the Vietnam War officially ended, Vietnam Veterans are finally getting<br />
the welcome home that so many of them sorely lacked in those initial days during, and after,<br />
the war. VetRock2013, a one-day festival being held to honor Vietnam Veterans as “The<br />
Welcome Home You Never Received”, will take place on June 1 at Bader Field, in Atlantic City.<br />
Why now, 40 years later?<br />
It’s well documented that upon returning to the United States after the Vietnam War, many vets were mistreated and rejected, and certainly<br />
didn’t receive the type of ‘welcome home’ that veterans from previous wars received. Dennis J. Stauffer writes, in The Bitter Homecoming,<br />
“...the war was not a welcome topic outside the walls of veterans clubs. The Viet vet became a scapegoat for our country’s involvement in an<br />
unpopular war. We faced rejection and verbal, sometimes physical assault. That’s why many veterans quickly discarded their uniforms after<br />
returning home; it was easier than facing humiliation in public places.”<br />
People are stepping up to right these wrongs. On March 30, New Hampshire celebrated Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. NH Governor<br />
Maggie Hassan said, of the Vietnam vets, “When you returned home, you were given no parades, no ceremonies. Instead, you carried the<br />
pain of the injuries you suffered, the memories of what you had endured, and the belief that the very people you protected were ungrateful<br />
for your sacrifices.” Hassan added, “It is my humble honor today to make sure that we say: Welcome home.”<br />
Here in New Jersey, it’s Mike Merlino who, with his NJ Non-Profit, Wiser Charitable Enterprises, is producing VetRock 2013. (Wiser Charitable<br />
is the organization behind the Wounded Warrior Golf Outing held annually at McCullough’s Emerald Links in Egg Harbor Township.) Merlino is<br />
a veteran advocate, working with organizations like American Legion Post 352, SAL, American Legion Riders Post 352, and Rolling Thunder<br />
NJ, Chapter 4. In addition, along with Commander Bill Butler, Merlino hosts “Veterans Matter Radio Show”, which currently broadcasts on<br />
WPG TalkRadio 1450 AM each Saturday from 11-1. The show focuses on “perpetuating the goal of educating the public and assisting our<br />
veterans and returning troops.”<br />
As an advocate, Merlino has worked with veterans and our returning troops, from Iraq and Afghanistan, extensively. In his work, he came across<br />
a poster depicting soldiers in Vietnam with the caption, “Not This Time; Not on My Watch!”, referring to the less than favorable conditions<br />
that Vietnam Vets were met with upon their return to the states, and the resounding welcome that those same Vets give to returning troops<br />
from the Middle East. The message affected Merlino, and once again, he decided to<br />
help. This time, the answer was VetRock2013, offering Vietnam Vets “The Welcome<br />
Home You Never Received.”<br />
“This generation of soldier will not be treated poorly due to the diligence and<br />
patriotic attitude of our veterans, especially Vietnam vets,” Merlino said of Vietnam<br />
vet support of troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, adding, “For many<br />
(Vietnam vets) their own welcome home is long overdue. Thus, VetRock2013.”<br />
With Keynote Speaker, Colonel Oliver North, a classic car show produced by “The<br />
Nostalgia Knights”, and 60’s era entertainment on the main stage, including acts<br />
like Mark Farner & Band (formerly the lead vocalist and guitarist from Grand Funk<br />
Railroad), The Soul Survivors, The Trammps, The Buckinghams, Mitch Ryder & The<br />
Detroit Wheels, all to be MC’d by Joe Piscopo and his band, the event is sure to<br />
attract veterans and nostalgia seekers alike. Not only will the event be celebrating<br />
veterans, but all proceeds from VetRock 2013 will benefit Vietnam Veterans<br />
through Fisher House, Vineland Veterans and the Homeless Vietnam Veterans<br />
Fund.<br />
16 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
PET OF <strong>THE</strong> MONTH<br />
Hi, I’m Skid! I’m a very young (just over a year<br />
old), happy go lucky, housebroken, fun guy to have<br />
around. I love everyone. I love to play outside. I don’t<br />
know how I ended up in a shelter, but I’m lonely<br />
and want a family of my own. Won’t you please<br />
come visit me and see if you can give me a home?<br />
Contact the Atlantic County Humane Society at<br />
(609) 347-2487 or on line at www.hsacpet.com.<br />
Sponsored by Connie’s Elite Pet Care.<br />
Downbeach’s Premier Professional Pet Care<br />
www.ConniesElitePetCare.com<br />
What We do:<br />
• High-End, Detailed Pet Sitting<br />
• Individual Dog Walks<br />
• Behavioral Modification/Dog Training<br />
• Playtime<br />
609-408-7782<br />
• Pet Taxi Service<br />
• Therapeutic Massage<br />
• Medications Administered<br />
• Post-Op Care<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 17
fashion<br />
by Raina Tallent, Fashion Editor of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
Gilbert: I just wanted to say that I’m a nerd, and I’m here tonight to stand up<br />
for the rights of other nerds. I mean uh, all our lives we’ve been laughed at<br />
and made to feel inferior. And tonight, those bastards, they trashed our house.<br />
Why? Cause we’re smart? Cause we look different? Well, we’re not. I’m a nerd,<br />
and uh, I’m pretty proud of it.<br />
Lewis: Hi, Gilbert. I’m a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news<br />
for the beautiful people. There’s a lot more of us than there are of you. I know<br />
there’s alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might’ve been<br />
called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped<br />
on, left out, picked on, put down, whether you think you’re a nerd or not, why<br />
don’t you just come down here and join us. Okay? Come on.<br />
Gilbert: Just join us cos uh, no-one’s gonna really be free until nerd<br />
persecution ends.—Revenge of the Nerds 1984<br />
Hi, my name is Raina and I’m a nerd. I have and always will march to the<br />
beat of a different drummer, and I’m proud of it. Growing up, I wore big<br />
thick glasses, had a mouth full of metal, and was chubby. I was kicked off<br />
the softball team for “throwing like a girl” and for making my jersey into a<br />
crop top. I was told that I’d never be a ballerina because my hips were too<br />
wide and my boobs were too<br />
big. Tap dancing was an epic<br />
failure, and the instructor said<br />
that I’d never be a Rockette.<br />
I remember like yesterday,<br />
asking the popular girls if I<br />
could do the lip sync contest<br />
with them, and their response<br />
to me was, “The song is Simply<br />
Irresistible. Not Simply Ugly!”<br />
I remember the pit I had in my<br />
stomach from holding back<br />
the tears. I was so young, but even then I wouldn’t let those girls see how<br />
much they hurt me. The best part of this story is that I recently ran into one<br />
of those so called popular girls, and she was single, severely overweight, and<br />
missing teeth. Karma at its finest. I never went to prom, but I did graduate top<br />
5 of my class. So what if there were only 5 kids in my grade!<br />
So here I am a mother of three and the only thing worse than being picked<br />
on is having to see your child go through the same thing you did. I will do<br />
anything to protect my kids from any type of harm. So my question: What<br />
do you do when your son is being bullied right in front of your face? Makes<br />
you wonder how mean kids must be when you’re not around. Do I care if<br />
my kids are popular? No. Do I care that my kids are the best athletes? No.<br />
I’m certainly not the parent that vicariously tries to live my life through<br />
my children. I simply want my sons to be able to go to school each day not<br />
worried if they have to sit alone at the lunch table, or whether they’ll be<br />
picked last for a team, or whether they’ll be made fun of. I want my boys to<br />
enjoy their childhood. I’m aware that kids are kids and they aren’t always nice,<br />
but that’s not how I raise my boys. Being mean is not ok. Real friends don’t<br />
Bully Proof<br />
Raina Tallent graduated from<br />
the University of Miami in 2001<br />
and returned to Margate where<br />
she currently resides with her<br />
husband Mike, her three sons<br />
and five dogs. Although she<br />
graduated with an education<br />
degree, she had more interest<br />
in fashion and decided to open<br />
treat each other like that and it is important for kids to learn that at an early<br />
age.<br />
I’ve confronted the parents of children on numerous occasions and they turn<br />
around and say, “I can’t force my child to be friends with your son”. That’s<br />
not what I’m asking. All I ask is for your child to not humiliate my son. To<br />
have compassion and humility. I’m frustrated and I can’t fight my children’s<br />
fights. I’m so scared that my son will believe that he’s a “loser” because of the<br />
way he’s treated. I can buy him cool clothes and sneakers and spike his hair<br />
and try to boost his confidence—I look at him and all I see is this handsome<br />
boy that brought so much love into my life. However, I can’t make kids be<br />
his friend. I can’t buy him the confidence to stick up for himself. I remember<br />
being in 4th grade and crying because I felt like I had no friends. My dad tried<br />
cheering me up and he opened the newspaper to the classified section and<br />
said” Ok, Raina, lets buy you some friends.” At the time I didn’t understand<br />
the joke, but now I realize there was nothing he could do and it hurt him too.<br />
It was his way of trying to help me. Now, I’m in the same position.<br />
I’m not one of those fake people that make their lives out to be a fairy tale or<br />
claim that I’m always happy. My morning started out by me sitting on a pee<br />
covered toilet seat and ended<br />
Simply Fly Boutique in 2009 to<br />
bring some of her South Beach<br />
fashion sense and unique taste<br />
to the South Jersey area.<br />
Simply Fly Boutique continues<br />
to offer the latest fashion and<br />
trends while providing a fun<br />
and relaxing environment for<br />
all of its customers.<br />
with me falling asleep mashed<br />
between one of the dogs and<br />
my boys. I stub my toes, get<br />
parking tickets, get pimples<br />
right in between my eyebrows,<br />
can’t fit into jeans, and have<br />
nightmares. But nothing<br />
is worse than seeing your<br />
children unhappy. Even worse<br />
is feeling helpless.<br />
Bullying will never end. There will always be someone that feels like they<br />
must belittle someone else to make themselves feel better about their own<br />
insecurities. Instead of trying to target the bullies, we as parents must teach<br />
our children to stand up for themselves. To instill in them the confidence to<br />
believe in themselves. Remember the old rhyme, “Sticks and stones may<br />
break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? If only this were true. Words<br />
hurt and can stay with you forever. There is no way of taking them back.<br />
Nowadays, with all this technology, it’s hard to control the bullying. You hear<br />
of young teenagers killing themselves because of rumors and pictures posted<br />
all over the internet. What kind of world are we living in?<br />
So what does this all have to do with fashion?<br />
Being mean makes you ugly...period!! In<br />
addition, all this added stress is causing me to<br />
find happiness in baked goods and chocolate.<br />
You’ll be seeing me this summer plopped in<br />
a beach chair, wearing a moo moo, with my<br />
cankles in the ocean.<br />
FAMiLy LAw<br />
DIVORCE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HEAR<strong>IN</strong>GS RESTRA<strong>IN</strong><strong>IN</strong>G ORDERS<br />
CHILD CUSTODY / SUPPORT VISITATION SEPARATION AGREEMENTS<br />
Attorneys At LAw<br />
18 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
Kenneth M. warren Jr., esq.<br />
1200 AtLAntic Avenue<br />
AtLAntic city, nJ 08401<br />
(609) 345-5800<br />
Best LegaL services<br />
- Silver -<br />
www.LeonardLawGroup.com
Fly Girl ofthe Month<br />
This is Cambrianna Finegan from Egg Harbor<br />
Township. She is 18 years old and is graduating from<br />
EHT high school in June 2013. Her plans are to<br />
attend ACCC in the fall and study to be an ultrasound<br />
technician. Cambrianna is currently working at<br />
Ocean Treasures on the Ocean City Boardwalk and in<br />
her free time she enjoys shopping with her best friend<br />
Chris Meier. In this picture she is wearing a dress by<br />
Keepsake. Its classy and sexy!!<br />
FLY<br />
GIRL<br />
Simply Fly Boutique<br />
521 TilTon Road,<br />
noRThfield, nJ<br />
609-241-6322<br />
simplyflyboutique<br />
flYGiRlXoXo<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 19
20Questions:<br />
Nynell Langford<br />
Nynell Langford<br />
First Lady of Atlantic City<br />
1. Being the First Lady of Atlantic City makes you<br />
somewhat of an authority on the topic of First<br />
Ladys. Tell us what you admire most about First<br />
Lady Michelle Obama?<br />
I admire First Lady Michelle Obama’s down to earth<br />
personality. There is also a lot of admiration for her<br />
hands-on approach to motherhood with her two<br />
daughters.<br />
2. What does being a First Lady actually entail?<br />
I think it depends on who you are as a person. For me<br />
it goes from soup to nuts. For instance, you will find me<br />
bringing greetings if my husband has a conflict with his<br />
schedule, hosting bone marrow drives, doing major toy<br />
drives during the holidays, cleaning and decorating my<br />
husband’s headquarters, and even giving him advice<br />
on what to say or not say. Believe it or not, he listens<br />
sometimes. But again, those things I would do whether<br />
I’m the First Lady or not. It’s just who I am.<br />
3. In Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman was the longtime<br />
First Lady when her husband Oscar was the Mayor.<br />
Now she is the Mayor. Will we ever see Mayor Nynell<br />
Langford on the 7th Floor of City Hall?<br />
I have learned in life to never say never.<br />
4. Your husband is in the midst of yet another<br />
campaign leading up to June’s Democratic Primary<br />
election. How taxing are these campaigns on your<br />
family?<br />
It’s a busy time, but we don’t complain. We all have<br />
a role and we try to do our best in whatever role we<br />
have.<br />
5. Speaking of the election, we know who you will<br />
be voting for. Why should others vote for your<br />
husband?<br />
Mayor Lorenzo Langford has integrity. And that is a<br />
very important trait to have as an elected official. He<br />
also knows and loves the city of Atlantic City. He has<br />
some of the same concerns as the residents. And with<br />
that being the case, he has all intentions to try and<br />
20 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
solve a lot of those issues.<br />
6. Being the Mayor and First Lady of Atlantic City<br />
certainly has its perks. You have met and gotten to<br />
know world class celebrities like Paul McCartney,<br />
Jay Z and Beyonce. Who have you met that had you<br />
the most star struck?<br />
Stevie Wonder and Mrs. Corretta Scott King.<br />
7. You were a Playboy Bunny at the old Playboy Casino<br />
and Hotel, true or false?<br />
Yes, I was a Playboy Bunny in 1980.<br />
8. Do you still have your costume?<br />
No way! LOL<br />
9. We have heard that the Mayor, in addition to his<br />
many talents leading the City, is actually quite a<br />
good singer. Is this true?<br />
The Mayor is a great singer! In fact, during the 80’s<br />
we did a lot of duet singing. We won numerous casino<br />
talent shows.<br />
10. Speaking of singers, your goddaughter is R&B<br />
superstar Ashanti. Tell us about her.<br />
Ashanti is as beautiful inside as she is outside. She’s<br />
very humble and giving. We talk at least once a month.<br />
She’s working on her new CD and has a role on the<br />
show Army Wives. I am so proud to be her godmother.<br />
11. What do you think the biggest misconception is of<br />
your husband?<br />
That he’s arrogant, which is not true. He’s just a proud<br />
and confident man, who is comfortable with who he is.<br />
12. Do you think your husband has been treated fairly<br />
by the local media throughout his career?<br />
Not really, but you have to know how to take lemons<br />
and make lemonade.
13. How important are these next four years to Atlantic<br />
City’s future?<br />
Very important.<br />
14. If you were trapped in a room with Governor<br />
Christie, what would you say to him?<br />
I hope you are not claustrophobic, because we may be<br />
here for a while. LOL<br />
15. Atlantic City has many fine restaurants. Tell us<br />
some of your favorite places.<br />
I love the Melting Pot. And Kelsey and Kim’s is my<br />
other favorite place.<br />
16. Tell us about “A Time to Remember” and what it<br />
means to you?<br />
“A Time to Remember” is a special event that I<br />
founded in 2003 after the death of my daughter<br />
Mariah. Every December I treat mothers who have lost<br />
a child to a special evening filled with dinner, music,<br />
gifts, lighting of candles, and a beautiful montage<br />
of our children. We remember our children as they<br />
lived and not how or why they passed. It’s only a<br />
language that is spoken by a parent who has had to<br />
deal with such a tragedy. We have a wonderful evening<br />
remembering our kids and no one judges us. I started<br />
with 25 mothers, now I host at least 150.<br />
17. How can our readers contribute to this wonderful<br />
event?<br />
If anyone is interested in attending or recommending a<br />
mother I can be reached at nynelllangford@yahoo.com.<br />
18. Tell us about your two sons...what are they up to<br />
these days?<br />
Elijah and Isaiah are my life! Elijah is in his second year<br />
at Stockton State College majoring in communication.<br />
And Isaiah is finishing his first year at Atlantic City<br />
High School. My husband and I are so blessed to have<br />
been picked to be Elijah and Isaiah’s parents. They<br />
are involved in their dad’s campaign. And Elijah might<br />
make it to the 7th floor before I do.<br />
19. When the day comes that your husband is no longer<br />
Mayor, how would you like him to be remembered?<br />
I would like my husband to be remembered as a man<br />
and Mayor who always wanted what was best for the<br />
people of Atlantic City.<br />
20. Next time Ashanti comes to town, can you bring her<br />
by the office?<br />
I will make that her second stop, after she has a home<br />
cooked meal at my house!<br />
2310 Arctic Ave.<br />
Atlantic City, NJ 08401<br />
609-344-2732<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 21
Kenneth M. Warren Jr., Esq.<br />
My parents should have suggested Kenneth M. Warren<br />
Jr., Esquire, when they gave me this advice: “Find a<br />
lawyer, a doctor, and an accountant who are younger<br />
than you,” with the idea that these professionals would ‘outlive’<br />
me and my need for them.<br />
Warren is only 26 years old. But do not let his age fool you. A<br />
lawyer with extensive work in a varying array of fields, Warren<br />
has more experience than his years would have you believe.<br />
Not only that, but being knowledgeable, passionate and<br />
aggressive make him a rising star in and out of the courtroom.<br />
His most recent work history is a perfect example. While<br />
Warren interned during law school at Rutgers University School<br />
of Law—he spent the summer of 2010 in the Family Division<br />
with Superior Court Judge James Savio and the following<br />
summer in the Criminal Division with Superior Court Judge<br />
Kyran Connor—by his third year of school, he was already<br />
representing clients in Superior Court in the Rutgers Children’s<br />
Justice Clinic. After graduating from Rutgers, and while<br />
preparing to take the state bar exam, he already had attained,<br />
and was working at, his full time job with The Leonard Law<br />
Group in Atlantic City.<br />
Warren, an Egg Harbor Township native, always knew he<br />
wanted to go into law. His father, retired Margate police officer<br />
Kenneth Warren, Sr., and mother, Patricia Warren, were a huge<br />
influence in his life. “They’ve always instilled in me a strong<br />
sense of values, respect for the law, and dedication to hard<br />
work that has allowed me to succeed.”<br />
In the two years he’s been with The Leonard Law Group,<br />
Warren has gained a vast amount of experience in many areas<br />
of the law. And since passing the bar, Warren has seen the<br />
inside of a courtroom more days than he can count. “James<br />
(Leonard) has been a huge mentor,” Warren said, adding,<br />
“I’m in court five days a week. Unlike some of my former<br />
classmates, I wanted to be in court. I enjoy it...I love what I do.”<br />
Though well versed in multiple areas of the law, Warren focuses<br />
his practice in the areas of family law and immigration. “I put<br />
everything I have into every file that comes across my desk,”<br />
Warren explained. “I treat every client as if they were my only<br />
client, and give them the time and attention they deserve.<br />
That’s the only way to practice law when the results matter.”<br />
Licensed to practice in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania,<br />
Warren could have his hands full with legal work alone. Instead,<br />
he also maintains a position as the Director of Operations<br />
for The Boardwalk Journal, overseeing digital design and acting as<br />
a systems manager. Here is where that multi-disciplined<br />
experience comes in...<br />
In addition to going to law school, Warren also majored in<br />
philosophy and history, and minored in environmental studies,<br />
during his undergraduate work at Seton Hall. While a student<br />
there, he also taught himself to write html code, and became<br />
employed with Nomad Geomatics, where his job was to create<br />
full-scale designs for mapping systems.<br />
It has always been this way for Warren—exceeding the status<br />
quo and challenging expectations. Even in college, Warren<br />
wrote a thesis entitled Environmental Tensions in Antebellum<br />
Georgia that was awarded the annual George L.A. Reilly Award<br />
for Historical Research.<br />
Even his recreational interests are intense. From being an<br />
Eagle Scout to maintaining a love for the outdoors, Warren<br />
gives everything his all. Longtime girlfriend, Stephanie<br />
Hostetler—recently hired as a short term forecast analyst for<br />
TD Bank—accompanies Warren on what is quite possibly, the<br />
only relaxation he gets—going out to eat. “We love to go out<br />
to dinner, to try new places.” Favorite restaurant? Steve &<br />
Cookie’s.<br />
Warren is young. Rather than that being a deterrent, Warren’s<br />
age has provided him with passion, enthusiasm, determination<br />
and drive. Add his notable intelligence and friendly charm, and<br />
you’ve got yourself one good lawyer.<br />
Kenneth M. Warren Jr., Esq.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 23
Deirdre Lenzsch<br />
Deirdre Lenzsch is a high school anomaly. At first glance,<br />
she’s a typical teenage girl. A bright one, an athletic<br />
one, to be sure, but a typical teenage girl nonetheless.<br />
In fact, she may even appear to be that to her close friends,<br />
who have never been able to witness her superior and recordholding<br />
talent.<br />
Sixteen year old Deirdre Lenzsch is an Olympic-style weight<br />
lifter. And she is no joke.<br />
At Lenzsch’s first competition, she beat the national<br />
champion’s total by 8 pounds—she was 12 years old. A year<br />
later, at the age of 13, Lenzsch attended her first National<br />
competition, where she broke all of the 13 and under<br />
American records. Since then, Lenzsch has competed in<br />
competitions all across the country, setting records as she<br />
goes. From being the youngest qualifier in the country for<br />
the Senior Nationals at the Arnold (Schwarzenegger) Sports<br />
Festival —and meeting Arnold in the process—to competing in<br />
the Youth World Weightlifting Championships on April 13 of<br />
this year in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she set six personal<br />
Deirdre Lenzsch<br />
records in the competition finishing with lifts of 83 kilograms<br />
in the snatch and 107 kilos in the clean and jerk for a<br />
combined total of 190 kilograms, Lenzsch is becoming known<br />
as a force to be reckoned with. What do all of those kilograms<br />
mean? They mean that Lenzsch is formidably strong.<br />
If you’re a Lenzsch, being an athlete really does go with the<br />
territory. Even Lenzsch’s grandparents were star athletes:<br />
Her maternal grandmother was a national rowing champion<br />
in doubles. Her maternal grandfather was an All-State track<br />
star. Helen Lenzsch, Deirdre’s mother, was All-State lacrosse,<br />
and also played rugby and swam. Father Tim Lenzsch played<br />
for the Mainland Mustangs. And Lenzsch’s brothers are<br />
both, at the ages of 12 and 18, incredible athletes: Timmy<br />
Lenzsch is a 4 time Varsity wrestler (and 3rd in his district)<br />
and Sean Lenzsch is rated 2nd in the state for wrestling. All<br />
three Lenzsch children—Deirdre included—were also talented<br />
football players.<br />
While Deirdre hails from a naturally strong and athletic<br />
family—Lenzsch credits a lot of her success to “growing up<br />
being really, really active as a kid” as well as great genes—<br />
she didn’t expect to become a weight lifter. Though Lenzsch<br />
played football for eight years, and can boast the title of the<br />
first girl in the history of Mainland’s football team to ever<br />
start as a middle linebacker, weight lifting wasn’t something<br />
she had considered until a chance meeting at a 4th of July<br />
party four years ago this summer. It was at the party when<br />
Lenzsch was introduced to a girlfriend of a family friend,<br />
who just so happened to be Rizelyx Rivera, the Puerto<br />
Rican National Champion in women’s weight lifting at the<br />
time. Meeting her made an impression. “I had the wrong<br />
impression of weight lifters...I thought of weightlifters as<br />
massive women with bulging muscles, deep voices...she<br />
was rockin’ a sundress. I think it was because of her not-sointimidating<br />
appearance that I was much more open to trying<br />
the sport.”<br />
That was the beginning. Four years and several records later,<br />
Lenzsch is a virtual powerhouse. Recently named Athlete<br />
of the Week for 97.3 South Jersey ESPN, Lenzsch is now<br />
also a member of the World Team with the goal of the 2016<br />
Olympics in mind. All of this, of course, while she maintains a<br />
3.7+ grade point average as a high school sophomore, sings<br />
the National Anthem at various events, and participates as<br />
an assistant coach for the Junior Mainland Lacrosse Team<br />
alongside her mother, Helen, who is the girls coach.<br />
24 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
Although Lenzsch is a successful and competitive athlete,<br />
with tremendous dedication, she isn’t at the gym 24/7. “I train<br />
about 1.5 hours a day three to four times a week,” Lenzsch<br />
explained. Her coach, John Crowne, who is a former Masters<br />
Champion in Olympic Weightlifting, is one of her biggest<br />
fans. “She exceeds my expectations,” Crowne said, adding<br />
“The greatest point with Deirdre is the power of her mind...as<br />
physically gifted as she is, mentally, she’s even stronger.”
Allen Thomas<br />
If you know Atlantic City native Allen Thomas as an<br />
entertainment consultant, then you only know half of<br />
his story. Though Thomas’s work in entertainment spans<br />
across companies such as Platinum Productions out of<br />
Philadelphia, the Advancing Families Foundation, Marty Small<br />
Entertainment, Kelsey’s Restaurant, and The Professional<br />
Football Players Mother’s Association (representing primarily<br />
Mothers of the NFL), Thomas is equally involved in his work as<br />
a youth advocate.<br />
Thomas has been a youth advocate for Youth Advocate<br />
Programs, Inc. for the past fifteen years. Four months ago,<br />
Thomas became an executive in the organization as the<br />
Atlantic County Program Coordinator, promoted from his most<br />
recent position of Senior Case Manager. He also serves as<br />
an appointed member of the Atlantic County Youth Service<br />
Commission, where he is the Co-Chair for the Minority Issues<br />
Sub-Committee. Working with youth isn’t just a job for<br />
Thomas—it’s part of who he is.<br />
Thomas tells people, “Your community is as safe as you make<br />
it,” as he advocates for people to become volunteers. “At<br />
some point, you just need volunteers to come play checkers<br />
or get the kids there. Just get involved...you have to get your<br />
feet in the water. Your level of confidence will determine how<br />
deep you want to go. Just show up. Be a presence. Like to<br />
crochet? Start a crochet club. Build a volunteer group based<br />
on what you like. Don’t get discouraged by numbers. Changing<br />
1 person can lead to changing 100.”<br />
Thomas is well aware that some volunteers suffer from<br />
burnout and their own expectations, saying, “They (the youth)<br />
are not always going to champion you right away. They might<br />
even take things from you without asking or say things to you<br />
and around you that may sound very offensive. These are<br />
young people who often times have issues. (But) if you stick<br />
around long enough, you will wear off on them. You have to<br />
be willing to wait them out...watch and see the type of impact<br />
you will have on them in the near and distant future.”<br />
It wasn’t Thomas’s intent to work with troubled youth—he<br />
planned to become a business owner, which he did by the<br />
young age of 19. However, even his work in the business world,<br />
as the owner of Do the Right Thing Entertainment, involved<br />
youth. “We did media programs...Teen Focus...a teen talk show<br />
on Comcast,” Thomas shared. He was also behind Today’s<br />
Music Digest on TV40. It seemed that whatever he did, youth<br />
were involved.<br />
So it wasn’t such a stretch for Thomas to begin working as an<br />
advocate. It started with youth work like coaching football and<br />
basketball, but grew to include the cleaning up of the Boys<br />
and Girls Club near Stanley Home Village, which at the time<br />
had lost its ability to be a safe haven to local youth. Thomas<br />
helped clean it up. That was the beginning.<br />
Allen Thomas<br />
“It was familiar,” Thomas said of working with this youth<br />
population, adding, “I grew up in difficult times...had an<br />
interesting childhood in a housing development. I had lost<br />
friends just from being in the wrong space at the wrong time.”<br />
Thomas, a father of six, is deeply involved in the lives of the<br />
youth he works with, saying, “The young people’s perception<br />
is survival. And they’re surviving the best they know how.<br />
Unfortunately, their know-how is distorted.” To combat this,<br />
Thomas brings the troubled youth of AC to other cities, to see<br />
how other kids live. He also advocates volunteerism.<br />
Thomas credits three people with “inspiring and supporting<br />
his drive to volunteer and work effectively with young<br />
people in this community”: Michael Bailey, a former coach<br />
of the Atlantic City Dolphins, Joanna Lasane, a former<br />
drama teacher from Atlantic City High School, and Lamont<br />
Fauntleroy, Thomas’s current supervisor. These three<br />
individuals inspired Thomas, now he’s doing the same for<br />
others.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 25
Saint Judith<br />
Charters<br />
SaintJudith Charters.com<br />
Angeloni’s II<br />
restaurant and lounge<br />
Angeloni’s II offers the finest Italian-American<br />
cuisine in the Atlantic City area. The family-owned<br />
and operated businesses have been preparing the<br />
finest Italian-American entrees in the greater New<br />
Jersey area for over 40 years. We invite you to enjoy<br />
the fine dining experience of Angeloni’s II where<br />
every detail in your complete satisfaction is our goal.<br />
2400 Arctic Avenue Atlantic City, NJ 08401 • (609) 344-7875 • Angelonis2@comcast.net<br />
We are located on the corner of Arctic & Georgia Avenues<br />
26 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
Best food in AC: “Every time I return to my hometown in<br />
Trenton, NJ, I visit Angeloni’s in Atlantic City…the best veal<br />
dishes in town...recently sent my friends from Las Vegas<br />
(Louie Prima Jr. and his band) to Angeloni’s and they loved<br />
it...and you will too.”<br />
Henry Poreda, Saloonkeeper, Sonny’s Saloon<br />
and Casino Las Vegas, Nevada<br />
Open Monday - Friday for Lunch, Seven Days for Dinner
Anthony’s Out to Lunch<br />
Atlantic City Beerfest<br />
By<br />
Anthony Previti<br />
Hello Friends! I am on location in Las Vegas<br />
doing some very important work. (Okay,<br />
I’m really just sitting by the pool drinking<br />
a Margarita). As I was enjoying the sun,<br />
I realized that Festival Season is upon us.<br />
Barbecue, Blues, Beer, Pizza, Wine. You<br />
name it, there is probably a festival for it.<br />
And we just witnessed one of the classic<br />
crazy times at the Atlantic City Beer and<br />
Music Festival. If you have never been,<br />
you are missing out. Next month we will<br />
be back with another episode of my food<br />
escapades, but for now I leave you with my<br />
Top 5 Tips for Surviving the AC Beerfest!! (It<br />
goes without saying, a designated driver is<br />
a must. Take a train, a bus, a cab, or have<br />
your mom pick you up like it’s 8th Grade all<br />
over again. Just don’t drink and drive).<br />
1. Eat!<br />
I recommend eating a nice meal before<br />
Beerfest to help soak up all that alcohol. It<br />
can’t hurt to eat when you get there, but<br />
you might want to do it early to avoid the<br />
unbearable lines. The most seasoned vets<br />
show up with a row of pretzels hanging<br />
around their neck. Genius.<br />
2. This is a Marathon, Not a Sprint.<br />
In my younger days, we would meet early<br />
and pre-game with a few drinks beforehand<br />
and then run through Beerfest pounding<br />
beers at will. This is a terrible idea. You<br />
will regret this the next morning. Probably<br />
the next two mornings. Instead, learn from<br />
my early mistakes. Don’t drink before a<br />
BEERFEST! Relax, take a break, grab a<br />
pretzel, and have a good time. Your body<br />
will thank you. Your friends will thank you.<br />
3. Try Everything<br />
There are hundreds of different beers (and<br />
some ciders). I have tasted some of the<br />
best and some of the worst ones on the<br />
planet. Drink local beers, drink beers from<br />
around the world, just drink them all. The<br />
samples are small and if you don’t like it,<br />
dump them out in the sinks located all over<br />
and wash your glass. You may just find that<br />
new beer for your summer barbecue or<br />
party that you have coming up.<br />
4. Stop and Enjoy the Music<br />
Every year the bands get bigger and better.<br />
So picture this: You’ve sampled the beers,<br />
grabbed a snack, and are feeling pretty<br />
good. What do you do now? Grab a sample<br />
of your favorite drink of the day and go<br />
hang out by the stage. Nothing like some<br />
solid music with a good beer buzz. Plus if<br />
you are a single guy, there always a ton of<br />
women dancing by the stage. Just sayin’.<br />
5. Never, Ever, Pass Up an Open<br />
Bathroom!!!<br />
Unless you are wearing a diaper (yes,<br />
people really do wear diapers), if you see a<br />
bathroom with a short line, stop. Otherwise,<br />
you will regret it later when the line wraps<br />
around the Convention Center. But if all else<br />
fails, there is a secret bathroom that most<br />
people don’t know about and it never has a<br />
line. It’s located right next to the....<br />
YOU REALLY DIDN’T TH<strong>IN</strong>K I WAS GONNA<br />
TELL YOU, DID YOU?<br />
Stay hungry<br />
my friends!<br />
See you<br />
next month!<br />
Atlantic City<br />
Beer and Music<br />
Festival<br />
The Atlantic City<br />
Convention Center<br />
1 Miss America<br />
Way, Atlantic City<br />
Tickets go on sale<br />
around November<br />
The Event is<br />
usually in April<br />
www.acbeerfest.com<br />
Log onto Facebook,<br />
like our page, and let<br />
Anthony know what<br />
you think at:<br />
www.facebook.com/<br />
AnthonysOutToLunch<br />
Anthony Previti is a criminal defense attorney who appears frequently in Atlantic County Superior Court and he<br />
loves food. If you would like your restaurant featured, please send an email to: OutToLunch@boardwalkjournal.com.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 27
Mangia<br />
Smitty’s Clam Bar<br />
It’s almost summer. Can you feel it? The sky is<br />
brightening, the salt water is beckoning, and, perhaps<br />
the biggest harbinger of summer for those of us at the<br />
Jersey Shore—the Clam Bar is about to open (opening<br />
day is May 10).<br />
The Clam Bar at Smith’s Marina in Somers Point,<br />
known as Smitty’s to those far and wide, is an old school<br />
Atlantic County landmark, known as much for its good<br />
food as it is for its low prices and long waits. Picture this:<br />
Right on the bay off of Bay Avenue, nestled between<br />
Somers Point Marina and Dolphin Dock Marina, sits<br />
an unassuming building with a blue and white striped<br />
awning, surrounded by boardwalk benches.<br />
It is here, in this low-key building—the longtime home of<br />
Smith’s Marina—where Smitty’s Clam Bar has operated<br />
for the past 40 years.<br />
The story goes something like this. Peter Popovic<br />
used to clam for Bill Smith, owner of Smith’s Marina.<br />
Popovic, who with his friend, Dennis Deniston, had run a<br />
restaurant in St. Croix, asked Mr. Smith if they could take<br />
over the ‘restaurant’ portion of the marina, which at the<br />
time served burgers and cheese sandwiches to boaters.<br />
Mr. Smith, and his wife Claudia, who had been running<br />
the dining area with the assistance of Mrs. Smith’s<br />
mother, thought it was a great idea. And a clam bar was<br />
born.<br />
Originally, the restaurant was a 24 hour counter only<br />
clam bar where customers would come before, and after,<br />
going to the clubs that were legendary in the Somers<br />
Point heyday.<br />
When Somers Point changed direction, and became<br />
a more ‘family-friendly’ town, the Clam Bar, in the<br />
early 80s, changed too. They began closing earlier.<br />
They began serving dinners. It wasn’t the smoothest of<br />
transitions.<br />
When they began serving dinners, they practically had<br />
to give them away to get people to come in. “Literally,<br />
we would just send them a dinner,” explained Patrice<br />
28 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Popovic, wife of Peter Popovic.<br />
It’s funny how times change. Open<br />
from May to September, these<br />
days The Clam Bar can boast a<br />
wait almost every night of the<br />
week with people lining up to get<br />
their dinners, the same ones they<br />
used to have to give away.<br />
Although people now line up to<br />
get a table at The Clam Bar, and<br />
the restaurant has expanded to<br />
include space once occupied by<br />
a bait shop and a motor repair shop (in the marina),<br />
not much else has changed. In fact, The Clam Bar<br />
can be considered a throwback to a simpler, no frills<br />
time. A cash only establishment, the BYOB restaurant<br />
doesn’t have a web page, a Facebook page, or even air<br />
conditioning. And they don’t accept reservations, hence<br />
the notorious wait. They got popular the old fashioned<br />
way—word out mouth—and it’s what keeps people coming<br />
back.<br />
“Date night: tandem ride to Smitty’s counter for flounder<br />
sandwiches and fries! And of course clam chowder too!”<br />
said customer and local resident Patti Bowdler. Customer<br />
Christine Perro agrees, saying, “My husband and I used<br />
to go every year for our anniversary...baseball gets in the<br />
way now. We miss it...great memories.”<br />
It’s not just the customers that keep coming back.<br />
Patrice Popovic started out as a waitress at The Clam<br />
Bar. Now married to Peter Popovic—they’ve been<br />
married 36 years—she continues to work the front of<br />
house while Peter cooks. Angelo DeRosa began working<br />
as a dishwasher. He is now one of the cooks, and along<br />
with the Popovics and their nephew, fellow cook, Todd<br />
Simpson, is a partner in the restaurant.<br />
Illustration by Paul Lovett<br />
© Atlantic City Nostalgic Art<br />
some mother-daughter teams,”<br />
explained Patrice Popovic.<br />
Peter Popovic and Dennis<br />
Deniston (who passed away<br />
nine years ago), could never<br />
have foreseen how a little clam<br />
shack would turn into one of our<br />
county’s hidden gems when they<br />
opened four decades ago. Yet<br />
that’s exactly what happened.<br />
With customers who eagerly<br />
anticipate May to come back<br />
to their favorite restaurant,<br />
The Clam Bar has stood the test of time, changing<br />
demographics, and an economic recession all without a<br />
web presence or much in the way of advertising.<br />
It’s not fancy. It’s not polished. It’s just good food at a<br />
great price. As customer Becky Benson jokes, “It’s great<br />
seafood, for not a lot of clams!”<br />
From the clam strips, to the crab imperial to the ‘half and<br />
half’ chowder—a combo of Manhattan and New England<br />
Clam Chowders mixed together—everyone has a favorite.<br />
Patrice Popovic recommends the scallops dijon, any of<br />
their homemade specialty soups made fresh each day,<br />
the tuna wasabi and the seafood salad. And if you’re<br />
coming in on a Thursday, the potato skins stuffed with<br />
lobster, shrimp and crab must be tried!<br />
The Clam Bar is open for lunch on weekends starting<br />
Memorial Day weekend, and open daily for lunch in mid-<br />
June when local schools get out. Dinners are served<br />
nightly until 9:30, and until 10:00 on weekends. The<br />
official opening night is on Friday, May 10th, but rumor<br />
has it that The Clam Bar might just be open for business<br />
on Thursday, May 9th. It’s worth driving over to find out.<br />
“We have a great staff, and so many have been with us<br />
for so long. Some who started at 14 and are now in their<br />
early 40s...now their kids are working here too. We have<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 29
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Lloyd D. Levenson’s – “Life at the Shore”<br />
There is an old<br />
saying that those<br />
who like sausage or<br />
who respect the law<br />
should never watch<br />
either one of them<br />
being made. Strangely enough, the<br />
Justices of the United States Supreme<br />
Court, whether liberal, conservative, or<br />
moderate, all seem to agree with this<br />
principle. The late Chief Justice<br />
Rehnquist, long an icon of judicial<br />
conservatives, was strongly against<br />
cameras in the Supreme Court, as is the<br />
current Chief, John Roberts. Justice<br />
Sonia Sotomayer, a favorite of liberals<br />
and feminists, testified at her<br />
confirmation hearings in 2009 that she<br />
was all in favor of letting citizens watch<br />
their government at work in the<br />
Courtroom. Her public position now,<br />
however, is that American citizens<br />
would not comprehend what is going<br />
on. Justice Elena Kagan, who also stated<br />
at her confirmation hearings that<br />
television coverage of the Supreme<br />
Court “would be a great thing for the<br />
institution,” now states that she is afraid<br />
“that people might play to the camera.”<br />
These two arguments: (1) that the<br />
public is too stupid to understand what<br />
is going on; and (2) that the Supreme<br />
Court Justices would be tempted to<br />
emulate Simon Cowell or Nicki Minaj<br />
and mug for the camera, are the most<br />
prevalent concerns registered.<br />
In my opinion, neither of these<br />
objections have any merit. I believe they<br />
are directly contrary to the central<br />
principle of American justice, which<br />
favors transparency and openness at<br />
virtually every step of a proceeding. As<br />
John F. Kennedy stated in his famous<br />
address to newspaper publishers in<br />
April of 1961, “the very word ‘secrecy’<br />
is repugnant in a free and open society. .<br />
. . We decided long ago that the dangers<br />
of excessive and unwarranted<br />
concealment of pertinent facts far<br />
outweighed the dangers, which are cited<br />
to justify it.”<br />
If, as the doubters insist, the public is<br />
too ignorant to understand what goes on<br />
before the United States Supreme Court,<br />
is the answer to keep the public in<br />
ignorance or to open the doors and make<br />
them aware of what is happening? I<br />
favor the latter approach.<br />
If there are Justices of the United States<br />
Supreme Court who will “play up” to<br />
the cameras, and somehow shirk their<br />
duty to decide cases fairly and<br />
impartially, should the public not be<br />
made aware of this? Or is it better to<br />
simply sweep this fact under the rug?<br />
These issues came to the fore again<br />
recently during the highly publicized<br />
Supreme Court arguments on “same<br />
sex” marriage, when thousands of<br />
people attempted to obtain precious<br />
tickets for the few gallery spots available<br />
to watch the Supreme Court in action<br />
and to hear the arguments being made.<br />
The notion that only the small and elite<br />
group who scored tickets could watch<br />
the Supreme Court, while the rest of us<br />
were relegated to news reports later in<br />
the day, is wholly unacceptable.<br />
We need only look at other high<br />
courts which have opened their doors<br />
to wide press coverage, and which have<br />
experienced no ill effects, to see that the<br />
“concerns” usually cited are illusory.<br />
The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court,<br />
the Supreme Court of Canada, and the<br />
New Jersey Supreme Court all have live<br />
television or webcasts of their<br />
arguments. None of these august<br />
bodies have descended into chaos<br />
because of television cameras.<br />
The United States Supreme Court has<br />
increasingly been the well-spring of<br />
important new legal principles, dealing<br />
with areas considered “too hot to<br />
handle” by the Legislature or the<br />
Executive. Their decisions effect the<br />
lives of Americans on a daily basis. The<br />
notion that we are too ignorant to<br />
watch the Supreme Court is insulting<br />
and elitist. At the same time, the claim<br />
that the Justices themselves lack the<br />
maturity to resist “playing to the<br />
camera” during oral argument is<br />
contemptuous of the exceptional men<br />
and women who are selected to serve<br />
on this nation’s highest Court.<br />
The time has come to take the heavy,<br />
dusty drapes off the windows and to let<br />
the sun shine into that beautiful<br />
building in Washington where the<br />
United States Supreme Court sits.<br />
Lloyd D. Levenson is Chief Executive<br />
Officer of the Atlantic City-based law firm Cooper<br />
Levenson and Chairman of the firm’s Casino Law<br />
Departments in Atlantic City and<br />
Las Vegas. Mr. Levenson may be reached at<br />
(609)344-3161 or by email at<br />
ldlevenson@cooperlevenson.com.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 31
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HOW ATLANTIC CITY BLEW IT<br />
<strong>THE</strong> BIG HUSTLE<br />
B Y G E O R G E A N A S T A S I A<br />
34 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
They were lined up down the Boardwalk for blocks.<br />
And once they got inside, there still was no guarantee that there’d be a place at one of the tables or<br />
slot machines.<br />
Sometimes they’d have to wait for an hour or more.<br />
But still they came.<br />
Every day.<br />
More and more people.<br />
This was bigger than anyone expected.<br />
Thirty-five years ago this month, Resorts International opened the first legal casino in Atlantic City.<br />
The gambling palace was in the renovated Chalfonte-Haddon Hall hotel complex on the Boardwalk<br />
at North Carolina Avenue. This was the start of the grand experiment – a “unique form of urban<br />
renewal” said the proponents of the plan that had been approved in a state-wide voter referendum in<br />
November 1976.<br />
“Casino gaming,” they said (they never called it “gambling”) was NOT an end in itself, but a means to<br />
an end. This was the economic catalyst that was going to rebuild<br />
Atlantic City.<br />
What the hell happened?<br />
How did a city(and a state)that seemed to have everything going for it more than three decades ago<br />
screw it all up? How did Atlantic City, the former Queen of Resorts, a city small enough to be easily<br />
managed and lucky enough to have a Boardwalk, beach and ocean just sitting there, fail to cash in?<br />
How did the city roll a snake eyes when it appeared to be a lock to win the biggest gamble of its life?<br />
You can go many different places to look for the answers and to fix blame. Fixing blame, in fact, is part<br />
of the city’s DNA. When a problem arises, those in power don’t try to solve it, but bend themselves<br />
into contortions avoiding responsibility while pointing a finger at someone else. It’s the state. It’s the<br />
federal government. It’s the Department of Environmental Protection. It’s Wall Street. It’s the casino<br />
industry. The list goes on and on and on.<br />
So you can start there when trying to assess how things got so screwed up.<br />
And you can add greed and incompetence and, most recently, a recession/depression.<br />
For my money, it’s all of that and more. It’s a personality defect that has plagued Atlantic City forever.<br />
It’s rooted in a history that goes back to the turn of the last century. It’s built around the concept that<br />
the suckers are only going to be here for twelve weeks a year so let’s get all we can while they’re here.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 35
That was the mindset and it never really changed.<br />
Memorial Day to Labor Day with an extra week tacked on for the Miss America Pageant.<br />
You remember the pageant, right?<br />
Oh, yeah, it’s coming back. Great timing. The city’s in the dumps and the pageant, a phony, overhyped,<br />
Boardwalk extravaganza that was designed to extend the season for a week has decided to<br />
bring the girls – young ladies, I mean – back for the “college scholarship” competition. Wink. Wink.<br />
That’ll fix things.<br />
Wait. I have a great idea. Let’s build a pier out off the Boardwalk. Make it an entertainment center.<br />
One admission charge and you can spend all day watching movies, stage shows, maybe some kind of<br />
animal act. I know! A horse that dives into a pool of water. And let’s add a big bell with lots of glass<br />
windows. Kind of a mini-submarine attached to chains. We’ll cram people in and they can stand<br />
claustrophobically next to one another as the bell is lowered into the ocean. It might be hot and<br />
sweaty and muggy in there and you really won’t be able to see anything twenty feet down (not that<br />
there’s that much to see) but it’d be a great gimmick.<br />
All for one price!!<br />
Atlantic City was built as one big carnival act, offering tourists the sizzle but not the steak. The<br />
coming of casino gambling didn’t change that, it just upped the ante, increased the hype. The twelveweek<br />
economy was replaced – in theory at least – by a year-round tourist attraction. But the approach<br />
in the local political and business arenas didn’t change.<br />
“What’s in it for me?” was the first question that was asked. “What’s best for the city?” wasn’t part of<br />
the discussion.<br />
Here’s the bottom line on all this as we try to assess why things are so screwed up— screwed up to the<br />
point, in fact, that there may not be a solution.<br />
You know how New York City is The Big Apple and New Orleans is The Big Easy?<br />
Atlantic City was, and is, The Big Hustle.<br />
Start from that premise and the failure makes sense.<br />
It was never about making it work. It was always about grabbing a piece of the pie. The pie got bigger,<br />
sure, but that just made everyone greedier. So here we sit, marking the 35 th anniversary of the<br />
opening of the first casino and what do we see?<br />
Just up the Boardwalk is Revel, a $2 billion gamble that doesn’t look like it’s going to pay off. The<br />
36 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
casino is now in bankruptcy. The state is on the hook for about $260 million in tax credits. Governor<br />
Christie continues to crow about the Tourist District, but that’s also more form than substance. Last<br />
month the financials came in and casino profits were down overall by about 27.5 percent.<br />
Those are some of the numbers to play with.<br />
Here are some more.<br />
Pinnacle Entertainment paid $270 million for the old Sands casino-hotel site back in 2006. But it was<br />
never able to build the extravagant casino-hotel it had planned. The deal collapsed and two months<br />
ago Pinnacle announced that it had a deal to sell the land for $30.6 million. Peanuts in the grand<br />
scheme of things, but even at that rock bottom price, it doesn’t appear there’s a market for a casino at<br />
that prime Boardwalk location.<br />
Bader Field, touted just a few years ago as the next great thing, looks a lot like it did a decade ago. It<br />
was “prime”, said city planners, “worth a billion dollars. Maybe more.”<br />
How’d that work out?<br />
There’s always great juxtaposition in the ebb and flow of Atlantic City. On March 26, the day after<br />
Revel formally filed for bankruptcy, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey held a press conference to<br />
announce that law enforcement had busted the “Dirty Block” drug gang that was operating out of and<br />
terrorizing residents of several of the city’s public housing projects.<br />
“The Dirty Block gang had placed a community under siege,” said David Velazquez, the acting head of<br />
the FBI’s New Jersey office.<br />
Law-abiding citizens, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, “deserve to have neighborhoods that are safe<br />
places to walk and raise their families.”<br />
The case was primarily about guns, money and drugs – lots of drugs. But there was also this. In the<br />
aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, members of the drug ring filed false damage claims with the Federal<br />
Emergency Management Agency and were receiving disaster relief checks at a phony address that<br />
was actually a drug stash house.<br />
It was a small but telling piece of the hustle that goes on every day.<br />
We can talk statistics. God knows the bureaucrats and the social scientists love to codify<br />
any situation.<br />
But to be fair, some of the stats are a distortion.<br />
The crime rate is high. One of the worst in the state, right? Sure. And when you measure the statistic<br />
against a year-round population of 40,000, the numbers are astronomical. But to be fair, you have to<br />
play those numbers off the millions who visit, not the thousands who live here.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 37
A deranged woman stabs two tourists from Canada to death on Pacific Avenue. Horrible, but not an<br />
indictment of casino gambling. A rag-tag, blue collar Bonnie and Clyde kidnap and kill a grocer from<br />
North Jersey visiting the city with his family for a night at the casino. Terrible. But something that<br />
could – and does – happen in any city with a large tourist population.<br />
Predators go where the money is. It’s not complicated.<br />
Four prostitutes are killed and their bodies dumped in a backwater creek behind a seedy motel just<br />
outside of town. A national story about a suspected serial killer. Bad for the city’s image, but not the<br />
reason for the failure of the casino gambling experiment.<br />
Increased crime, like increased automobile traffic, is a by-product of the coming of casino gambling.<br />
Those are not the numbers or statistics that explain the failure.<br />
But here are some that might.<br />
Only 33 percent of the people who live in Atlantic City own their homes. The state-wide average is 66<br />
percent. Ownership, social scientists will tell you, creates a vested interest in what elected officials<br />
are doing, or not doing, to make a city work.<br />
Thirty-five years after the start of the unique form of urban renewal that was going to rebuild the city,<br />
one out of every four residents of the city lives below the poverty level. Atlantic City is Camden or<br />
Newark or Paterson, but with a Boardwalk and a beach.<br />
That’s what it was before casinos were legalized. No one expected that’s what it would be more than<br />
three decades into the make-over. According to the 2010 census, the per capita income in Atlantic<br />
City is 45.7 percent less than the state average and 22 percent less than the national average. The<br />
median household income -- $30,237 -- is 60 percent less than the New Jersey average and 42<br />
percent less than the national average.<br />
Did someone mention elected officials? Where to begin? HBO has hit a homerun with Boardwalk<br />
Empire, a series based on Atlantic City in the 1920s and the city’s charismatic political leader<br />
Nucky Thompson (we all know it’s Nucky Johnson, but for creative reasons the writers decided<br />
on a name change).<br />
Corruption has always been a part of the landscape. Nucky and his minions turned it into an art<br />
form. But you also could argue that Nucky Johnson got things done; that the city functioned, indeed,<br />
prospered, when he was in charge. Let’s just throw out a few names and see how they compare.<br />
One former mayor, during the halcyon early days of the casino gambling boom, was convicted of<br />
selling his office to the mob. Offered perhaps the most succinct and still fitting description of a<br />
politician in a power seat in Atlantic City. “Greed got the better of me,” he said.<br />
Craig Calloway, city council president and – talk about a hustle – an FBI informant at the same time he<br />
was an FBI target. You can’t make this stuff up. A master of the absentee ballot scam, a street-smart<br />
38 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
ut amoral political operative. Arranged to have a rival councilman lured to a seedy motel by a young<br />
hooker, then filmed the encounter in an attempt to get his rival either out of office or in line with<br />
the program Calloway was touting. It didn’t work, but that’s not the point. Oh, and did I mention the<br />
councilman who was targeted was a part-time minister whose defense was not that he was entrapped,<br />
but that he didn’t pay for the sex that was picked up on the video?<br />
Mayor Robert Levy. Seemed like a nice guy. Everybody’s friend. A veteran who served with the Green<br />
Berets…or not. A personal hustle, but a hustle nonetheless.<br />
For years the city’s African-American population had to deal with racism and exclusion. Blacks<br />
weren’t part of the early prosperity. In the 1920s, they made up the backbone of the hotel industry’s<br />
workforce, but it was almost a plantation situation.<br />
With the dawn of casino gambling, they were still largely on the outside, looking in. But when blacks<br />
did get power, they didn’t handle it any better than their white predecessors. It wasn’t about making<br />
things right, about finally providing opportunities for the city residents to share in the wealth. That<br />
might have been the campaign pitch, but the reality after several administrations with African-<br />
Americans controlling the mayor’s office and city council is the same old, same old.<br />
Everybody’s got game and all that matters is getting ahead.<br />
Resorts, whose opening we commemorate this month, understood exactly how to work it. Think about<br />
it. There probably wasn’t a better fit than Resorts and Atlantic City. The former Mary Carter Paint<br />
Company first showed up in New Jersey helping to shape the referendum and the legislation that<br />
would pave the way for this great casino gambling experiment.<br />
Resorts had a track record in the Bahamas that raised some questions with the Division of Gaming<br />
Enforcement (remember that once independent agency that Gov. Christie has emasculated?). There<br />
was the Paradise Island casino staffed by refugees from one of the mob’s Cuban casino operations.<br />
And there were the rumored CIA connections, fueled in part by the fact that the casino provided a<br />
safe haven for the Shah of Iran when he was driven out of his country.<br />
But there was also this. In the Bahamas, Resorts had hired government officials as their barristers<br />
(lawyers). That was perfectly permissible under the Bahamian system. It also clearly was smart<br />
business. It’s always good to have a leg up in government when your business is in a highly regulated<br />
industry.<br />
In New Jersey, of course, Resorts couldn’t hire elected officials. But it did the next best thing. Joe<br />
McGahn was the Atlantic County State Senator back at the dawn of the casino gambling era. Steven<br />
Perskie was one of the local state assemblymen. Resorts local lawyers? Paddy McGahn, the wheelingdealing<br />
brother of Senator Joe, and Marvin Perskie, the uncle of Steven.<br />
And so the hustle continued.<br />
As a kid I came to Atlantic City every summer. My grandmother had a house on Bellvue Avenue<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 39
etween Atlantic and Pacific Avenues. I remember the Five Hundred Club and the Italian Village on<br />
the Million Dollar Pier. I remember walking the Boardwalk at night as a 12-year-old, playing in the<br />
pinball arcades or going to a movie.<br />
There was a great Italian water ice stand in the middle of the Boardwalk block on Bellvue Avenue.<br />
Real water ice. One flavor, lemon, with pieces of the lemon rind still in the ice. And on Sundays when<br />
you walked home from the beach, all you could smell was gravy cooking in the kitchens of all the<br />
transplanted South Philadelphia Italians who made their summer homes there.<br />
Shortly after the start of the casino gambling boom, a speculator wanted to buy up one side of the<br />
block. This was adjacent to what was supposed to be the Playboy Casino. Remember that? Then it<br />
was Elsinore? A “European”-style joint, they said. Gambling on three floors. Never mind that the<br />
European label was just a façade to explain away a narrow property that couldn’t sustain a one-floor<br />
casino model. Just part of the hustle.<br />
Anyway, this speculator wanted to buy up the homes on one side of Bellvue Avenue and was offering<br />
$100,000 for each three-story property. This was above market value, but the deal never went<br />
anywhere. Shortly after the offer was placed on the table, the neighbors started bickering. Who had a<br />
newer kitchen and therefore should get more? Who had hardwood floors or a modern bathroom or a<br />
fancier outdoor shower? If their place is worth $100,000, then mine is worth $150,000.<br />
What’s in it for me?<br />
Vera Coking Ruiz. Who could forget her boarding house on Columbia Place and the great battle with<br />
Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse Magazine, when the photo layouts in Penthouse were cutting<br />
edge porn. Now with the Internet and websites and sex-texting, the magazine almost seems benign.<br />
But that’s another story.<br />
Guccione was going to build a casino and was buying up the block. Vera Coking Ruiz wanted $1<br />
million for her boarding house. Guccione balked and a financial feud began. He eventually built the<br />
steel frame of his casino around her property. The Guccione project faltered, of course, and the steel<br />
eventually came down.<br />
Enter Donald Trump who built a casino on the Boardwalk and continued to battle with Vera Coking<br />
Ruiz. The Donald made out no better than Guccione. Both have since left the scene. But the boarding<br />
home, closed and shuttered, remains.<br />
The Atlantic City Press ran a story last year that said Vera Coking Ruiz’s family now has the property<br />
up for sale. The asking price? Five-million dollars.<br />
That’s five times what Guccione wouldn’t pay.<br />
Salt Water Taffy? It’s not made with salt water, but who cares. All part of the hype.<br />
40 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
The diving horse didn’t really dive. It kind of slid down the chute and into the water.<br />
Casino gambling, a unique form of urban renewal. You be the judge.<br />
As we move into another summer and the numbers keep dropping, look around and what do you see?<br />
We’ve got the outlet center in the middle of town, lots of high end, brand name discount stores<br />
surrounded by lots of fast-food restaurants. We have the Borgata out at the Marina that seems to<br />
be holding its own. But what other gambling hall is really making it? And how many others are close<br />
to bankruptcy?<br />
Part of it is competition. There are three casinos in Philadelphia and its suburbs. The Sugar House<br />
on Delaware Avenue is a glorified pinball arcade, but you can park for free and if all you’re interested<br />
in is a chance to zone out in front of a slot machine, why jump in a car and drive all the way to the<br />
Boardwalk, pay $15 to park and then drive all the way home?<br />
Atlantic City doesn’t offer a viable alternative.<br />
Despite billions of dollars in investment along the Boardwalk and out at the Marina, despite millions<br />
of visitors each year and despite local, county and state political leaders promising to do more and do<br />
it better, Atlantic City is still trying to figure out what it is and how to make it work.<br />
Some things, of course, haven’t changed. Walk along Pacific Avenue at night and you’re going to find<br />
a functioning, open-air bordello.<br />
“Hey, honey, wanna date?”<br />
There are more go-go bars than there used to be and now the casinos themselves can offer topless<br />
revues. Scores, the iconic Manhattan “gentleman’s club,” is said to be coming to town. There’s<br />
progress! High rollers can be wined and dined, win or lose, and top their visit off with a lap dance.<br />
Go home with a smile.<br />
But thirty-five years after the opening of Resorts International there still isn’t a supermarket in the<br />
city or a movie theater on the Boardwalk.<br />
Casino gambling, not an end in itself, but a means to an end?<br />
That might have been the biggest hustle of all.<br />
George Anastasia is a former reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer.<br />
He covered Atlantic City for the paper from 1976 through 1982.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 41
42 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Quadriceps Sparing Knee Replacement…Is it a better operation?<br />
A retrospective review and comparison to traditional knee replacement surgery from the patient’s perspective<br />
By Dr. Stephen J. Zabinski<br />
If you can perform knee replacement surgery without cutting through the quadricep muscle and tendon of the thigh it makes sense that<br />
those patients should have less pain and an easier rehabilitation than traditional, more invasive, surgical techniques. Or does it?<br />
Total knee replacement surgery has become one of the most frequently performed surgeries in the United States. Over time, as<br />
with any surgical technique, surgeons have sought new ways to perform the operation less invasively, with the goals of diminishing<br />
postoperative pain and improving recovery time.<br />
This has happened with traditional total knee replacement surgery. Surgeons have worked on techniques to implant a total knee<br />
replacement device without cutting the quadricep muscle and tendon as they do in traditional surgery.<br />
Despite the theoretical benefits, some studies have not documented any improvement in results with quadriceps sparing total knee<br />
replacement in comparison to traditional knee replacement surgery.<br />
To that end, the surgeons of Shore Orthopaedic University Associates (who have worked to learn and perfect Sub-vastus Quadriceps<br />
Sparing Knee Replacement for several years) hired an independent firm to perform a study on their patients who underwent Sub-vastus<br />
Quadriceps Sparing Knee Replacement Surgery in 2011-2012.<br />
The study was comprised of 113 patients who had all undergone quad sparing knee replacement by a single surgeon. The group of main<br />
focus were patients who had undergone a previous traditional total knee surgery and now were having the other knee replaced using<br />
the less invasive quadriceps sparing technique. Their short term outcome, which included post operative pain, rehab time and overall<br />
satisfaction with the quad sparing technique, was compared to their prior experience with traditional knee replacement.<br />
In comparing their post operative pain, 75.8 % of patients experienced less post operative pain with quad sparing knee replacement<br />
surgery in comparison to their prior traditional knee replacement surgery.<br />
For 67% of patients, the overall amount of post operative physical therapy and time to return to a normal lifestyle was significantly less<br />
than their prior traditional knee replacement. This correlated to the patient’s length of hospital stay (which averaged less than 48 hours)<br />
and their total time utilizing a walker and cane before normalizing to walking on their own (which averaged a total of 20 days); both of<br />
which are less than national averages.<br />
Overall satisfaction with the outcome of their knee replacement was greater in 78% of patients when comparing their Sub-vastus<br />
Quadriceps Sparing Surgery to their prior traditional knee replacement<br />
Lastly, as far as recommending the Sub-vastus Quadriceps Sparing Knee Replacement to friends and family, 94% agreed they would be<br />
very likely to recommend this procedure.<br />
When it comes to recommendations, we all know we listen to our physician’s advice, however the opinion of our friends and family who<br />
have previously undergone the procedure also matters greatly in our decision process. So the verdict is in: Sub-vastus Quadriceps<br />
Sparing Knee Replacement should be strongly considered when making the decision to replace your painful knee.<br />
Direct Anterior Approach Provides Benefits for Total Hip Replacement<br />
Hip replacement may be needed if you have severe pain from an arthritic hip, a tumor in the hip joint or a fracture in the femur.<br />
The majority of people who need hip replacement are in their 60s and 70s. However, people in their late teens and in their 90s<br />
have hip replacement surgery as well. Traditional total hip replacement surgery requires cutting or disturbing the important<br />
muscles at the side or back of the leg. Some people require precautions, limiting motion during the first 6 weeks after surgery to<br />
decrease the risk of the replacement dislocating (popping out of place).<br />
The Direct Anterior Approach for total hip replacement is a new tissue-sparing alternative to traditional hip replacement surgery<br />
that provides the potential for less pain, faster recovery and improved mobility because the muscle tissues are spared during<br />
the surgical procedure. Most people have: Good muscular control and strength immediately after surgery; Walk the same day of<br />
surgery, often with just a single cane; Leave the hospital 24 to 48 hours after surgery and go directly home; Have no restrictions<br />
in regard to their hip replacement and can return to driving within a week after surgery.<br />
Shore Medical Center – South Jersey’s Leading Surgical Pavilion<br />
Sub-vastus Quadriceps Sparing knee placement and Direct Anterior Approach hip replacement surgery are performed at Shore<br />
Medical Center’s state-of-the-art Surgical Pavilion, which features nine of the region’s most advanced surgical suites and the<br />
technology needed to ensure the best surgical outcomes possible. For information on Shore Medical Center, call 609.653.3500<br />
or visit www.ShoreMedicalCenter.org.<br />
Call us today to get back to what you love to do.<br />
From muscular strains and fractures to arthritic conditions, the physicians and staff of Shore Orthopaedic University Associates<br />
are trained in the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal problems, including those affecting the knees and hips. We can be<br />
reached at www.ShoreOrthoDocs.com or 609.927.1991 to schedule a one-on-one consultation with our physicians.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 43
Dear Mom,<br />
By Kimberly Pack (the daughter of April Kauffman)<br />
It’s been one year. One year since I’ve heard your voice, held your hand, kissed you, hugged<br />
you or told you I loved you. It’s been one year since I’ve gotten a morning hello. Ugh, what a<br />
rough year. I can’t begin to describe how much I miss you being a part of my life.<br />
The boys miss you terribly. Cart asks about you every day and asks me if they caught the person who has<br />
done this to you. I sadly reply ‘not yet’. He is getting so big and is so smart. You should see him play sports—<br />
he is such a good boy. Colt is almost 2 and is so ornery. You’d laugh at how much he gives me a run for my<br />
money. He points you out in every picture that is around the house.<br />
I’m so sad, Mom. How did this happen, and why? Why can’t I have my best friend, mother and sister by my<br />
side to help me navigate through life? I need your advice, your guidance, and love. I miss you more than any<br />
words could ever describe. It’s now spring and I think about how you should be here planting in my garden and<br />
helping to make my yard look nice.<br />
You’d be proud of me that I actually cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving and Easter and it turned out good! I<br />
come across so many books and cards you gave me. You always personalized them and would tell me how you<br />
think of me every day and how you want me to get the best and most out of life. I miss getting those cards each<br />
and every holiday; I still check knowing I won’t get another one from you. I think about how so many things came<br />
so naturally to you. A friend recently asked me if I had one of your recipes and I sadly replied ‘no’, because<br />
everything you made was from your imagination, and every dish was more delicious than the next.<br />
You loved helping others and got such joy from getting someone a special gift or lending a helping hand. You<br />
never took ‘no’ for an answer and ‘obstacle’ was not a word in your vocabulary. I missed celebrating my 30 th<br />
birthday with you this year. I remember how excited you were to plan a big party that never happened. You<br />
would be so happy to know that I have some of the best friends anyone could ask for. I am truly blessed to have<br />
such amazing ladies in my life. They threw the most special birthday for me—the only thing missing was you. As<br />
I was blowing out my candles I fought back tears because you should have been there.<br />
For your birthday this year, I invited all of your closest friends to my home and asked them to write their<br />
favorite memory of you. I will cherish those memories and stories—I only wish I had more. I have pictures that I<br />
look at all the time but it’s not the same. It’s not fair, there were so many great times and adventures to be had.<br />
Last Mother’s Day, before I closed your casket, I asked for your strength to help me get through without you.<br />
You were so many things, but strong and resilient were definitely among your top traits. You have helped me<br />
grow into an independent, strong, focused young lady. You’ve taught me so many things about life, but I wasn’t<br />
finished learning. I often sit at my kitchen table and stare out the front door looking for you in your red corvette<br />
to pull up out front. I know you will never come again and I guess that’s hard to accept.<br />
I also want you to know how proud I am of you, Mom. You have done so much for so many different charities<br />
and organizations. This year has been bitter sweet because a lot of those wonderful organizations want to honor<br />
you and give awards for your service. It’s so wonderful that you are being recognized but it’s so hard because<br />
44 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
you should be here accepting them.<br />
I miss meeting you for lunch, getting our hair done, going shopping, talking a million times a day, traveling<br />
together, watching my boys interact with you, going to the makeup counter (our favorite hangout), and mostly,<br />
hearing your laugh.<br />
I can’t help but to feel like I’ve failed you, like I should have done or said something. You were murdered in<br />
the privacy of your home and left for dead. It’s hard to be the only family member picking up the pieces.<br />
Unfortunately, while everyone’s life must go on, I am stuck at May 10, 2012. I am so sad because during our last<br />
phone conversation, you were frustrated and it wasn’t our normal funny banter. I am so sad to sit here one year<br />
later with the person responsible not brought to justice.<br />
I know now life is short. I used to think that that was an overused cliché, but now, it definitely has a whole new<br />
meaning to me. Love your loved ones, hug them, and kiss them because for me, I didn’t say everything I would<br />
have wanted to say to you. Here it goes: I love you to the moon and back, you were the most amazing mom who<br />
taught me so many wonderful lessons in life. You taught me to work hard and to reach for the stars. You taught<br />
me to never give up. You have taught me to be independent and not to rely on others to get things done. I am so<br />
proud of you and all you’ve done in your life. You were the most beautiful person I knew inside and out.<br />
If I could have any wish in this world it would be to talk to you one last time and hear your voice and for you to<br />
tell me everything will be ok. I think the hardest part from everything is to go on and pretend each and every day<br />
that I am fine. It’s hard to put the smile on and sometimes focus, feeling so sad and that there isn’t some sort of<br />
closure.<br />
Please do me a favor and watch over me and the boys—we’ve<br />
endured a lot this past year and need your love and protection. I<br />
love you Mom, and I miss telling you every day on the 20 phone calls<br />
that I love you. I said it before and I’ll say it again: the only thing I<br />
have left is hope. I have to be strong and hope that everything will<br />
work out the way it is supposed to. They say that when bad things<br />
happen and people do bad things, it catches up with them. I hope<br />
that is true and that our justice system, that is designed to protect<br />
the innocent, will triumph over evil.<br />
I love you….<br />
Kimberly<br />
Kimberly and April<br />
Anyone with information regarding the murder of<br />
April Kauffman should contact The Major Crime Unit of<br />
The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office at (609) 909-7666<br />
Speak up, April did...<br />
For more information, visit www.aprilkauffman.net<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 45
Hit Me!<br />
Fighting the Las Vegas Mob by the Numbers<br />
<strong>THE</strong> STORY BEH<strong>IN</strong>D <strong>THE</strong> STORY<br />
By Danielle Gomes<br />
“Hit Me tells the story behind<br />
the most intriguing tale in Las<br />
Vegas history—how the Mob<br />
was ousted from the Strip’s<br />
casinos in the 1970s. Drawing<br />
from interviews with many of<br />
his associates and the man<br />
himself, Hit Me shares the<br />
perspective of Dennis Gomes,<br />
who as the youthful chief of<br />
the Gaming Control Board’s<br />
Audit Division took on—and<br />
helped take down—the Mob by<br />
shaking its control of casino counting rooms.<br />
It’s a highly personal story, with details that<br />
had never been heard before. Even if you<br />
know your casino history, you’ll learn more<br />
than you thought possible. It’s a must-read<br />
for anyone who ever wanted to know the real<br />
story behind Martin Scorcese’s Casino.”<br />
Dennis Gomes and Barbara Gomes enjoying<br />
the annual Gomes Christmas Party<br />
46 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
—David G.<br />
Schwartz, author,<br />
Roll the Bones:<br />
The History of<br />
Gambling<br />
Dennis Gomes’<br />
involvement in the<br />
gaming industry<br />
spans over four<br />
decades. He<br />
began his gaming<br />
Danielle Gomes<br />
career as the youngest-ever Chief of the<br />
Audit Division for the Nevada Gaming Control<br />
Board and he ended it as the co-owner of<br />
Resorts Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City,<br />
NJ—grabbing headlines from start to finish.<br />
“Wunderkind”, “Mr. Fix-It”, “Casino Watcher”,<br />
“The Boy Wonder”, “Super Sleuth”—these are<br />
just a few of the titles that writers have used<br />
to characterize Dennis Gomes in newspapers<br />
from New York to Los Angeles.<br />
Gomes’ gaming career began in 1971, with his<br />
appointment to the Nevada Gaming Control<br />
Board. Gomes was hired as the Chief of the<br />
Audit Division charged with the detection
Dennis and his friend and martial arts trainer, Dave Sirota<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 47
and investigation of organized crime hidden<br />
interest and “skimming” in Nevada’s casinos.<br />
In 1971, a new governor was elected to<br />
run the Silver State of Nevada. Governor<br />
O’Callaghan was the dark-horse candidate;<br />
he won on a fluke with no backing from the<br />
casino industry. The newly elected Governor<br />
was a tough crusty ex-boxer, and a war hero<br />
with a wooden leg. Immediately following<br />
O’Callaghan’s appointment, he personally<br />
hired Gomes at just 27 years old.<br />
It’s no secret that the mob built Las Vegas<br />
and owned it well into the 1970s. However,<br />
in 1971, O’Callaghan wanted to change this<br />
and charged Gomes with this task. Within<br />
months of being hired, Gomes whipped a<br />
ragtag group of auditors into hardened, gunslinging<br />
investigators, and shattered clichés<br />
about milquetoast accountant cops. Coming<br />
within a hair’s breadth of death more than<br />
once, Gomes capped off his tenure with<br />
the famous bust of the Stardust skim,<br />
portrayed in the book and movie Casino.<br />
During this period, there was enough<br />
action to fill a dozen Scorsese films—<br />
midnight raids, heart-rending showgirl<br />
romances, and deadly double-crosses. And<br />
the cast of characters reads like a roll call<br />
of gangster lore. But no matter how much<br />
evidence Gomes uncovered, or how many<br />
witnesses and informants were bloodied,<br />
Gomes was swept aside by a political<br />
system that was dirty to its core. This is<br />
the story told in Hit Me! Fighting the Las<br />
Vegas Mob by the Numbers by Danielle<br />
Gomes and Jay Bonansinga. Although Hit<br />
Me will be published May 7, 2013 by Lyons<br />
Press, it was forty years in the making.<br />
When the political corruption eventually<br />
became insurmountable, Gomes left his<br />
post in law enforcement and entered<br />
48 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
the casino business, where he was able to<br />
clean up the industry from the inside. Gomes<br />
worked at dozens of casinos throughout the<br />
country. Success in business was Gomes’<br />
answer to the corrupt politicians that ran<br />
him out of law enforcement. Gomes went<br />
on to work for the gaming greats—Barron<br />
Hilton, Steve Wynn, and Donald Trump before<br />
striking out on his own. Gomes became<br />
an icon in the gaming industry, known<br />
for his wacky but<br />
brilliant marketing<br />
techniques—like<br />
playing tic-tac-toe<br />
against a chicken.<br />
And, chances are, if<br />
you’re reading this<br />
article, this is the<br />
Dennis Gomes you’re<br />
most familiar with.<br />
However, I’ve always<br />
Dennis with the famous<br />
Tic Tac Toe Playing Chicken<br />
Dennis and his executive martial arts students
known Dennis Gomes simply, as “Dad”.<br />
As the child of a casino boss, you could say<br />
that I had a very unusual upbringing. I was<br />
raised in a casino (actually multiple casinos).<br />
My first steps were taken at the Thunder Bird,<br />
at two I was stealing the show away from the<br />
lounge act at the Frontier with my toddler<br />
dance moves, at 11 we moved to Atlantic City<br />
and into the Taj Mahal (where we lived for<br />
close to a year), and every summer job from<br />
the time I was 16 was always at a casino. Much<br />
of my life has been spent in a casino.<br />
Now the unusual part… My dad may have<br />
worked a lot, as he was running the casinos<br />
that my siblings and I were growing up in, but<br />
he always had us with him. I had the most<br />
wholesome family life. We always had dinner<br />
together. Granted, it was often in a casino<br />
and late at night. Now, I realize many parents<br />
would not condone this sort of thing, but I<br />
had a truly wonderful childhood. The simple<br />
reason for this was not because I grew up in<br />
a casino but that I was raised by incredible<br />
parents.<br />
My mom, Barbara, a former ballet dancer, is<br />
the epitome of grace. She’s kind, beautiful,<br />
and loving. My dad met my mom while he<br />
was investigating the Tropicana for organized<br />
crime infiltration. My mom was a dancer<br />
in the Follies Bergere, which was owned by<br />
mobster Joe Agosto. My dad’s favorite joke<br />
was that Joe Agosto may have been put<br />
in jail, but my mom got a life-sentence. My<br />
dad’s sense of humor permeated all aspects<br />
of his life. He was always quick to smile. He<br />
was the ultimate free-thinker with a heart<br />
full of love. For him a hug was always better<br />
than a handshake—not a typical approach to<br />
business dealings.<br />
As many from the Jersey shore area know,<br />
my dad passed away a year ago, but I still<br />
think about him, almost constantly. And, I<br />
continue to be amazed by his ability to see<br />
the world in black and white—wrong and right.<br />
This may seem like a simple or even an oversimplified<br />
concept, but it’s really anything<br />
but simple. The human species is incredibly<br />
talented at the process of justification. This<br />
process turns a black and white world grey.<br />
It’s easy to do and comes so naturally that it’s<br />
almost second nature. Take, for example my<br />
dad’s first C.E.O. position at the Aladdin Hotel<br />
and Casino…<br />
A high-roller, an Arab<br />
prince that regularly<br />
lost millions at the<br />
Aladdin, lost too<br />
quickly for his taste<br />
and demanded that<br />
my dad fire the dealer<br />
that beat him. In an<br />
attempt to appease<br />
this high-roller, my<br />
dad moved this dealer<br />
to another section of<br />
the casino. My dad did<br />
this in the hopes that<br />
high-roller and dealer<br />
would not cross paths<br />
while he initiated an<br />
Barbara Gomes with her<br />
dance partner,<br />
Wayne Clemons<br />
The Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 49
investigation to make sure that no cheating<br />
was taking place. Well, the inevitable<br />
happened and this Arab prince saw the<br />
dealer. He then found my dad and screamed<br />
profanities at him for twenty minutes. My dad<br />
calmly said he understood and assured the<br />
prince that this issue would be taken care of.<br />
My dad moved the dealer again, finished the<br />
investigation, and concluded that the dealer<br />
had not done anything wrong. When the<br />
prince saw this dealer for the third time, he<br />
completely lost his temper and went straight<br />
to the owner of the Aladdin, Ginji Yasuda—<br />
the son of a Japanese billionaire. Yasuda<br />
demanded that my dad fire this dealer and<br />
my dad refused.<br />
He then told<br />
my dad that if<br />
he did not fire<br />
this dealer, he<br />
would fire my<br />
dad. Again, my<br />
dad refused and walked away from his first<br />
position as C.E.O.—without any job lined up.<br />
Dennis’ New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement ID<br />
Now, it would have been very easy for my dad<br />
to justify the firing of this dealer. I mean, we<br />
are supposed to do what our boss instructs,<br />
right? My dad had a family to support, he had<br />
no other choice, right? The list goes on. But,<br />
my dad just walked away because<br />
he knew that this dealer did not<br />
deserve to get fired and that he<br />
had his own family to support.<br />
This is seeing the world in black<br />
and white.<br />
When the moral environment of<br />
any position Gomes was in did<br />
not line up with his ethics, my<br />
dad would walk away. His tenyear<br />
career in law enforcement<br />
ended for this very reason. And,<br />
this is a lesson that my parents<br />
have worked very hard to teach<br />
us. My parents believed that<br />
everything we do should be done<br />
from a foundation of love and it<br />
is this lesson that has carried my<br />
siblings and I through our lives.<br />
50 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
Dennis and Grandson Jake Chapman<br />
Now, I’m a writer. Wow, that<br />
sounds weird to say. I did not<br />
grow up wanting to be a writer;<br />
I didn’t know what I wanted to<br />
do. Consequently, I tried just<br />
about everything. I worked in<br />
casino marketing, I taught public
speaking at UNLV, I worked in<br />
retail, and at one point I was a<br />
belly dancer and a stilt walker at<br />
the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas.<br />
However, the one constant was<br />
the love I had for my family and<br />
spending time with them. We did<br />
everything together—I grew up<br />
listening to my dad tell his stories,<br />
and I LOVED hearing them. My<br />
favorite stories revolved around<br />
his escapades chasing the mob<br />
through the neon lit streets of<br />
Las Vegas.<br />
Once I was older, I began to notice<br />
how much everyone else loved<br />
hearing his stories. So much so,<br />
they would ask my dad to tell his stories over<br />
and over—to their friends, to their wives, and<br />
to their children. The audience didn’t matter;<br />
whoever happened to be listening to one of<br />
my dad’s stories was fascinated.<br />
When my career as a stilt-walker and belly<br />
dancer didn’t pan out (as you read that<br />
statement please know that I am winking<br />
Gomes Family: Dennis, Danielle, Mary, Gabrielle, Aaron, Doug, Barbara<br />
my eye at you), I decided to go back to<br />
school. While I was in graduate school<br />
at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas I<br />
needed to fulfill a credit outside of my focus<br />
in journalism and media studies so I took<br />
a screenwriting class. This class had one<br />
assignment—pitch an idea then turn it into a<br />
full-length script. Everyone in the class was<br />
given thirty minutes to pitch their idea, so<br />
when it was my turn, I simply told my dad’s<br />
story. The class was so<br />
interested that my “pitch”<br />
session went on for two<br />
class periods, which was<br />
roughly three hours.<br />
Dennis and Aaron Gomes<br />
My dad’s stories had always<br />
been part of me until that<br />
class, when I started writing<br />
them down. Then his<br />
stories became something<br />
that I did—with my dad.<br />
I spent countless hours<br />
interviewing my dad, or<br />
really just talking about his<br />
life. I eventually turned the<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 51
New Year’s Eve 2012 with the Resort’s Executive Team<br />
first script I wrote for a class assignment into<br />
a treatment or an outline and people began<br />
reading it.<br />
This treatment was eventually turned into a<br />
book proposal and Lyons Press decided to<br />
publish Gomes’ story. In October of 2011, I<br />
was officially writing. It was amazing. I finally<br />
found something that I loved doing. My dad<br />
and I were working on this together. Each<br />
chapter that I wrote,<br />
I would immediately<br />
send to him, and he<br />
would go over every<br />
detail with a fine-tooth<br />
comb. It was a dream<br />
come true for me. Until<br />
Atlantic City’s Superman just before we started<br />
52 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
the last section, when my dad suddenly<br />
passed away.<br />
At this point, my whole world collapsed. I was<br />
devastated. My dad was everything to our<br />
family. Every moment of life with my dad was<br />
an adventure. A mundane trip to the grocery<br />
store became a vivid experiment in human<br />
nature. Life was fun. My dad had a wicked<br />
sense of humor that kept everyone on their<br />
toes. He was a master of the practical joke.<br />
The fart machine application on the IPhone<br />
was one of his favorite toys. Along with<br />
teaching his five kids right from wrong, he<br />
taught us to laugh every step of the way. And<br />
most important, through this, my dad taught<br />
us to love life and everything and everyone<br />
that comes along with it.
Of course, he did not do all of this alone.<br />
He had a true partner in my mom. They<br />
complemented each other in the best<br />
way. Our family was perfect.<br />
So, when the center of our family<br />
suddenly left us, it was not easy. We have<br />
all had to find our own way to deal with<br />
this tragedy and we still are. For me, I<br />
came back to this book. It was not easy,<br />
but as I wrote I felt my dad with me. The<br />
more I wrote, the more I felt my dad’s<br />
presence. It was in this process that I<br />
learned that my dad left me with an<br />
amazing gift. He left me his stories, the<br />
essence of his being.<br />
I had always dreamt of telling my dad’s stories<br />
with him. When my dad died, I thought that<br />
my dream had too. But, now I realize that<br />
through his stories he is still with me. This is<br />
still something that we are doing together.<br />
My life has changed dramatically this past<br />
year and a desire to write has been the one<br />
thing to truly surface. I continue to miss my<br />
dad every single day, but I feel his presence<br />
all around me. He has given me an incredible<br />
gift; my dad and my mom have taught me<br />
that love is the most powerful force in the<br />
universe. With love anything is possible and<br />
it is through this that I am able to write these<br />
Barbara and Aaron at the Street Naming Ceremony<br />
words now. My dad may not be with us in a<br />
physical sense, but he is here in every other<br />
sense. My dad truly loved life and he loved<br />
people. So in his honor, take a moment to<br />
smile and think of those you love—past and<br />
present.<br />
It wasn’t until I wrote this book that I truly<br />
learned just how incredible my dad is. I always<br />
knew that my parents had led unusual lives,<br />
but through the process of writing I realized<br />
how much courage it took for them to<br />
accomplish all that they have. So with great<br />
honor, I am happy to present to you my dad’s<br />
story…Hit Me! Fighting the Las Vegas Mob by<br />
the Numbers.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 53
y Julianne Dods, Fitness Editor of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
fitness<br />
Swim Safety:<br />
Know the Water, Know Your Limits<br />
Swimming is an invigorating, low-impact exercise that is appropriate for just<br />
about any fitness level, which makes it one of the most popular recreational<br />
activities, especially during the summer months. However, it can also be<br />
one of the most dangerous. Whether you swim at the beach, lake or in a<br />
pool, the proper safety precautions can prevent accidents and injuries and<br />
potentially, save lives.<br />
If you plan to spend any amount of time by the water this summer, it is<br />
important that you familiarize yourself with water safety skills and risks.<br />
A general knowledge of swimming and water safety training will give<br />
you the necessary skills to spot potential hazards, as well as respond to<br />
emergencies. These skills will protect not only yourself, but your family and<br />
fellow swimmers as well.<br />
The most obvious water safety skill is to simply learn how to swim. Being<br />
proficient in the water will better prepare you to handle any emergent<br />
situations that may arise. Swimming lessons are imperative for all children<br />
that will be in close proximity<br />
to any body of water. Selfrescue<br />
swimming lessons<br />
are available for children 6<br />
months of age through 6<br />
years. During these one-onone<br />
lessons, your child will<br />
learn to roll onto his or her<br />
back, float, rest and breathe<br />
until help arrives. Self-rescue<br />
swimming provides children<br />
with the competence and<br />
confidence they need for<br />
a lifetime of enjoyment in<br />
Julianne Dods is Vice President/General<br />
Manager of Tilton Fitness. Tilton Fitness<br />
is a nationally-recognized leader in health<br />
club operations. With more than 12,000<br />
members in four southeastern New Jersey<br />
clubs, Tilton Fitness is the leading provider<br />
of fitness services in the region. By providing<br />
exceptional facilities, unparalleled customer<br />
service, highly-trained professional staff,<br />
and comprehensive fitness and wellness<br />
programs, Tilton Fitness ensures that<br />
improved health is within the reach of<br />
and around the water. Older children who are not exposed to water play<br />
regularly may also benefit from being enrolled in swim lessons to promote<br />
water confidence and swimming proficiency.<br />
Teen and adults who do not know how to swim or who are not proficient<br />
swimmers also benefit from structured swim safety programs. If you are<br />
interested in learning how to swim, contact a local aquatic center or join a<br />
masters swimming group. Masters swimming is available for all individuals<br />
over 20 years of age at any fitness level. Generally not competitive in<br />
nature, masters swimming programs support recreational swimming<br />
for fitness and are a great way to learn technique while building water<br />
confidence.<br />
Another seemingly obvious water safety tip is to supervise children at<br />
all times. Drowning can happen in as little as two minutes and is often<br />
referred to as the silent killer of young children. Even if your child is an<br />
experienced swimmer, accidents happen. Always have someone, preferably<br />
an adult who is trained in CPR and general first aid, to supervise water<br />
play. When swimming at the beach or in any other instance aside from a<br />
residential pool, be sure to swim in the presence of a lifeguard. Be mindful<br />
of designated swim zones and remain vigilant at all times.<br />
The swimming environment and conditions also play a major role in water<br />
safety. Inspect the pool or beach area for potential hazards prior to entering<br />
the water. This includes, but is not limited to, observing rip currents and rock<br />
jetties at the beach and identifying ill-functioning drains or pumps at the<br />
pool. Inclement weather is also a safety hazard to monitor as you should<br />
never swim if severe weather is threatening or occurring. If you are unsure<br />
of the water safety conditions, use the lifeguarding personnel as a resource.<br />
While drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death for children,<br />
it is also represents a substantial risk for adults. Even strong, healthy<br />
swimmers can suffer from fatigue, muscle cramps or make poor decisions<br />
while in the water. It is never recommended, under any circumstance, to<br />
swim alone. Always use the buddy system when entering the water. Another<br />
crucial water safety tip is to always wear proper swim attire. Loose or<br />
baggy materials may become<br />
every member. Core programs and services<br />
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visit tiltonfitness.com, or call (609) FITNESS.<br />
bogged down with water and<br />
inhibit your ability to remain<br />
afloat. In addition, refrain<br />
from the usage of drugs or<br />
alcohol while in or around any<br />
body of water as both can<br />
severely impair judgment and<br />
coordination which increases<br />
your risk of accidental<br />
drowning or injury.<br />
As with any vigorous outdoor<br />
activity, it is important to stay<br />
hydrated and protect yourself from harmful ultraviolet rays when swimming.<br />
The sun’s rays become more intense as they reflect off the surface of the<br />
water. Be sure to apply a broad spectrum sunscreen at least 30 minutes<br />
prior to entering the water. For prolonged exposure, it is also beneficial to<br />
reapply your sunscreen every two to three hours or after leaving the water<br />
and toweling off.<br />
Swimming is a fantastic cardiovascular and strength training exercise, and<br />
also a lot of fun, but it presents real dangers. Know your limits and the limits<br />
of those around you. Always check the water conditions prior to swimming<br />
and never jump or dive into unfamiliar water. Learn to float, tread water and<br />
swim and always watch children whether there is a lifeguard on duty or not.<br />
These basic water safety skills may save your life or the life of a loved one<br />
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54 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
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y Nancy Adler, Nutrition Editor of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
health<br />
Vitamins: An Investment for Every Body<br />
For most healthy Americans under the age of 50 it may be possible to meet<br />
necessary nutrient needs through diet alone. Consumption of a wide variety<br />
of colorful, nutritious foods is the best way to maintain health and prevent<br />
chronic disease. With that being said, it is important to note that most<br />
Americans do not meet the recommended amount of nutrients in their diet.<br />
Through increased intake of fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy products,<br />
whole grains, and fortified foods, Americans can help ensure the quality of<br />
their diet so they’re more likely to meet nutritional needs.<br />
Unfortunately, many Americans don’t consume sufficient amounts of nutrients<br />
through diet alone, since they are easily lost through food processing.<br />
Approximately 75% of American adults don’t get enough magnesium in their<br />
diet, which is a crucial mineral for blood pressure regulation, among other<br />
functions, the top sources of which are spinach, potatoes, nuts and oats.<br />
Vitamin D deficiency is rampant. Most clients I see in my practice are deficient<br />
in this most important vitamin. Part of the problem, I think, is that today’s<br />
recommendations are made<br />
solely on vitamin D’s role in bone<br />
Nancy Adler is a certified nutritionist<br />
health, while research never specializing in nutrition and weight control.<br />
takes into consideration the She is the owner of Nancy Adler Nutrition<br />
multitude of functions for which where she counsels her clients on a oneon-one<br />
weekly basis helping them to make<br />
vitamin D is necessary. I suggest,<br />
even urge my clients to take permanent healthier lifestyle changes.<br />
2,000 international units each She currently holds three of the highest<br />
day. And to have their physician<br />
accredited certifications in the field of<br />
nutrition and fitness. Nancy lectures<br />
check that through blood work.<br />
in schools, businesses and civic groups<br />
Vitamin D, A, E and K are fat where she helps to spread the importance<br />
soluble vitamins so they are of healthy living through nutrition. Area<br />
stored in the liver and fatty<br />
tissues. So it’s a good idea to be<br />
sure your levels are in check before beginning a vitamin regimen.<br />
The body needs a minimum amount of vitamins and minerals each day to<br />
remain healthy and function properly. A balanced diet normally implies<br />
a sufficient diet. Of course, that is if you eat a balanced diet every day.<br />
Unfortunately, the results of an insufficient diet—a deficiency in vitamins<br />
and minerals—don’t often appear until problems are already in a relatively<br />
advanced level. For instance, people who do not have enough of the<br />
vitamins A, B1, and B2 suffer from recurring tiredness, mental or emotional<br />
disturbances, loss of appetite and chapped lips, among others.<br />
The common causes of vitamin deficiencies include poor eating habits,<br />
alcoholism, emotional stress, improper absorption of vitamins and minerals,<br />
the intake of medicines that interfere with the absorption of vitamins, and lack<br />
of exposure to sunlight. If you constantly feel sluggish and suffer from chronic<br />
health related inconveniences, you might be short of the vitamins your body<br />
needs to function properly. However, also keep in mind not to overdo it, as an<br />
excess of vitamins can also be harmful. Do you still need vitamins even if you<br />
maintain a healthy diet? The answer is yes.<br />
not all products available cater to what your body requires. There are some<br />
supplements that still lack what you need.<br />
The key components you must look for in a supplement are vitamins B6,<br />
B12, D, E and folic acid. Aside from being dietary supplements, these so<br />
called B vitamins have been known to combat certain types of cancer and<br />
heart ailments. While there remains no hard-lined link between cancer and<br />
daily intake of B vitamins, their preventative powers have helped raise the<br />
importance of daily doses of vitamins and minerals to our system.<br />
Vitamin A helps repair growth of body tissues, helps to maintain smooth,<br />
disease free skin.<br />
B6 Vitamins are the building blocks of protein, promoting healthy skin, aiding<br />
in the production of antibodies and helping maintain proper balance of<br />
phosphorous and sodium. Got leg cramps? B6 reduces muscle spasms and leg<br />
cramps.<br />
physicians consult with and refer Nancy<br />
to their patients to help them to possibly<br />
eliminate medications and naturally<br />
achieve a healthier lifestyle. You may listen<br />
to Nancy every Tuesday mornings on WOND<br />
1400 AM on Barbara Altman’s “Front Porch”<br />
and on Ed Hitzel’s “Table for One”. Nancy<br />
may also be seen on NBC TV 40 “Better<br />
Living with Adrienne.” Visit Nancy’s website<br />
at www.nancyadlernutrition.com or call her<br />
for an appointment at 609-653-4900.<br />
Vitamin B12 prevents anemia,<br />
increases energy, promotes<br />
growth in children and maintains<br />
a healthy nervous system.<br />
Biotin aids in the utilization of<br />
folic acid, Vitamin B12, protein<br />
and Pantothenic acid<br />
Folic acid is essential for the<br />
formation of red blood cells and<br />
aids in the metabolism of amino<br />
acids.<br />
Vitamin E retards cellular aging,<br />
alleviates fatigue by supplying oxygen, prevents and dissolves blood clots and<br />
aids in bringing nourishment to the cells.<br />
Keep in mind—and this is so important—that vitamins cannot be assimilated<br />
without food. They must be taken with food as they need food to absorb<br />
properly. And you know that cup of coffee you’re washing them down with?<br />
You’re actually voiding all the benefits of the vitamin and minerals as coffee<br />
stops the absorption process.<br />
Natural vitamins are those organic food substances which are found only<br />
in plants and animals. The body is not able to synthesize or manufacture<br />
vitamins on its own. Because of this, they must be supplied either directly in<br />
the diet, or by way of dietary supplements. Vitamins are vital if our body is<br />
to function normally. They are absolutely necessary for our growth, general<br />
well-being and vitality. Sure it’s costly, but when we think about it, vitamins are<br />
probably the cheapest type of insurance readily available in the market right<br />
now. Who are we to say no?<br />
Most people take vitamins to avoid common deficiency-related diseases, but<br />
NaNcy adler NutritioN<br />
It’s not a Diet. It’s a Lifestyle.<br />
www.nancyadlernutrition.com<br />
401 New Road, Suite 103 • Linwood , NJ 08221<br />
For an appointment, please call (609) 653-4900<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 55
family<br />
Danielle Davies, Family Editor of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
This Mother’s Day, A Wish For Us All<br />
The first time I felt like a mother, really truly like a parent, didn’t<br />
happen during my pregnancy, nor did it happen when I first laid<br />
eyes upon my newborn son. Though through all of that I loved<br />
him, and felt protective of him, the feeling that I was his mother<br />
didn’t happen immediately. In fact, I can clearly remember leaving<br />
the hospital with him and thinking, “My God, they’re letting us<br />
drive away”.<br />
It wasn’t until a few days later, when I was cleaning his infant<br />
hands with a baby wipe, that it clicked—I was a mother. I was his<br />
mother. This simple act of mothering, just wiping his hands, and<br />
it was suddenly crystal<br />
clear. Until then, there had<br />
been the whole wide world<br />
and me floating around it.<br />
At that moment though,<br />
everything changed.<br />
This was my child. I was<br />
a mother. And I would be<br />
until the end of time.<br />
I think that’s how it is<br />
with moms. We become<br />
them, and we stay that<br />
way forever. Sure, there<br />
Danielle Davies is a freelance writer<br />
and blogger, and the voice behind<br />
rubyandthemoon.com. A 1996 graduate<br />
from Villanova University, where<br />
she studied theater and philosophy,<br />
Danielle worked for several years<br />
at Jossey-Bass Publishers, A Wiley<br />
Company, in San Francisco, before<br />
returning to her native East Coast.<br />
After earning a teaching certification<br />
from Drexel University’s graduate<br />
is longing for a simpler (and mostly less demanding) way of<br />
life sometimes. And yes, many of us complain wildly about the<br />
sacrifices we make as parents, from our lack of time to driving<br />
minivans. But we wouldn’t change it, not really. We are forever<br />
bound to our children, impacting their lives with each move we<br />
make. Just as they impact ours. We will be their mothers long<br />
after they need us to mother them. We will be their mothers,<br />
sometimes, long after they’re gone.<br />
In the past six months, our country has seen a shocking amount<br />
of tragedy involving children. From the massacre at Sandy Hook<br />
Elementary School to the accidental shooting of a six year old by<br />
his four year old neighbor to the attack at the Boston Marathon<br />
where eight year old Martin Richard was killed, it seems neverending.<br />
It’s entirely possible that we’ve had this much senseless<br />
violence before—I’m not basing this column on statistical data.<br />
Instead, what keeps coming back to me is the age of the children.<br />
old. This is what seven looks like at my house: missing teeth,<br />
video games, potty humor, learning to tell time, to read, to better<br />
play with friends. Seven is silly, exasperating, smart and amazing,<br />
full of wonder but also with some new found street smarts. Seven<br />
is a lot more sophisticated now than it was when I was a kid. It’s<br />
playing with your little sister even when she’s driving you crazy. I<br />
would wager seven is like this in a lot of homes.<br />
Lately, though, we mothers in this nation have been forced to<br />
think of seven another way—as bullets, destruction, and funerals.<br />
As mothers, we’ve always known that fate can, and does, interfere<br />
with the lives of our<br />
program, Danielle spent two years<br />
in Philadelphia classrooms before<br />
moving her family to her hometown at<br />
the Jersey Shore, where she happily<br />
juggles many roles—writer, blogger,<br />
editor, and artist—while raising<br />
her family. Danielle is the longtime<br />
copy editor of The Boardwalk Journal. She<br />
welcomes comments and feedback at<br />
www.rubyandthemoon.com.<br />
children. There is disease.<br />
There are accidents. There<br />
are heart wrenching ways<br />
we can lose our children—<br />
and that’s hard enough to<br />
stomach. Violence should<br />
not be one of them.<br />
By the time this<br />
publication reaches the<br />
hands of readers, we’ll be<br />
right around the corner<br />
from Mother’s Day, and<br />
I just can’t help but think about these lost children, and their<br />
equally lost mothers. Because how can you be a mom when your<br />
child has been taken from you?<br />
So I’m asking for something this Mother’s Day, and I don’t know<br />
a mom who would mind if I ask for this on behalf of mother’s<br />
everywhere: Please just stop. Stop the violence. Stop the fighting.<br />
Stop the wars and the finger pointing and the name calling. Just<br />
stop. We have had more than we can take. We will hug our babies,<br />
and raise our children, and try so very hard to assure them that in<br />
this world gone mad, there is still good.<br />
You monsters out there: please, stop taking our children.<br />
Perhaps I’m stuck on this because my own firstborn is seven years<br />
Come home to Cousin Mario’s<br />
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56 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
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The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 57
Meeting<br />
Jimmy Buffett<br />
By Bill Kelly<br />
The first time I met Jimmy Buffett was at the Caribbean Club—the old Key Largo Hotel bar—<br />
before he made it big time. The original wood clapboard hotel where the classic Bogart<br />
film, Key Largo, was filmed had burned down long ago, and in its place was this little one story<br />
bungalow, shot and beer bar on the bay, with a juke box and a pool table.<br />
Stopping there on the way to Key West with some friends, we were shooting pool with Lynn<br />
Delcorio and the guys from the Quiescence dive shop, when Jimmy, apparently having been<br />
asleep in the corner booth, woke up and introduced himself.<br />
Since he didn’t have a hit song yet, nobody knew who he was, but he fit in well with our crowd,<br />
bought a round of drinks and fell into the nine-ball rotation with the guys while the girls sat in<br />
lounge chairs out back under the palm trees by the bay.<br />
Later Jimmy played guitar and sang during the open mic night and won the $50 prize, which<br />
was a lot of money in the days when a bottle of beer cost fifty cents.<br />
It must have been an interesting time in his life because he mentions it in his autobiography.<br />
A few years later we were all glad to hear his songs on the radio and were proud to know him,<br />
especially when he made it, and made it big-time from such humble beginnings. And from all<br />
accounts, the money and celebrity didn’t seem to change his personality or style.<br />
When we finally got back to Key West, after parking the van at the trailer park next to the<br />
shrimp boat docks, we went to Jimmy’s then new bar—Margaritaville. Jimmy wasn’t there, but<br />
the bartender said to stick around, as he was due in to pick up the receipts. Sure enough, he<br />
came in, went right to the cash register, counted the money and put it in his pockets. As he<br />
was walking out, I stopped him and asked if he remembered us from the Key Largo days.<br />
He stood back and scanned us, clicked his fingers and then said, “Nine ball, the afternoon I<br />
won open mic night, right?”<br />
I was surprised that he recalled us and asked, “You mean that was such a special day that you<br />
really remember it?”<br />
And he said with a laugh, “You must think that I always slept in the back booth there. Sure I<br />
remember it. I just got my first record contract and I was on a load, but yeah, I remember you<br />
guys.”<br />
A crowd had developed around us, and somebody tugged at Jimmy’s shirt and asked him for<br />
an autograph. He smiled, shrugged and signed, but then somebody wanted a photo of them<br />
together, and people started pestering him, and buzzing around like flies, so he just waved to<br />
us as he walked backwards out the kitchen door.<br />
That was the last time I saw Jimmy until Freemantle, Australia, 1987, during the America’s Cup<br />
sailing regatta. We were cheering on Dennis Conner to win back the Cup he had lost to the<br />
Aussies in Newport, Rhode Island, four years earlier. The Cup is the oldest sports trophy in<br />
competition and it was the first time since 1858 that a foreign country had taken the America’s<br />
Cup away. Dennis Conner was embarrassed he had lost it and was determined to win it back.<br />
Jimmy wrote a song about it, and Americans who had never sailed in their lives were suddenly<br />
interested in the America’s Cup sailboat race on the other side of the world.<br />
I heard Jimmy was in Freemantle from Joe Scafario, my Ocean City, NJ neighbor, who caught<br />
up with me at the Sail & Anchor pub. Joe said that he was walking around the Cape May-like<br />
Victorian port town when he came across Jimmy playing guitar and singing on a street corner<br />
like a vagabond, and he had a video to prove it.<br />
A few days later I caught up with Buffett at the bar of the Sail & Anchor. Jimmy was by himself,<br />
having a cold Swan, the local beer.<br />
I slipped up to the bar next to him and even though I had grown a beard since I saw him last<br />
he recognized me. “Key Largo, right? Nine-ball,” he snapped his fingers.<br />
58 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013<br />
“You Jersey guys are the only ones I know who play nine-ball like that.”<br />
After shooting the breeze and trading a few shouts—Australian for rounds of beer—Jimmy said<br />
he really enjoyed being Down Under.<br />
“They don’t recognize me here,” he said, incredulously. “So I can go out and about like this<br />
without people bothering me. I can’t do this at home. I can’t even hang out at my own joint<br />
because of the freaking idiots who just want a piece of me—my signature, my picture, do this,<br />
do that, I can’t even go out in public anymore. But here they don’t know me. It’s great.”<br />
Just then a new Australian friend came up to me and said, “Hey Ned, What about you now?”<br />
I explained to Jimmy that the Aussies nicknamed me Ned, after their famous outlaw Ned Kelly,<br />
and I introduced him, “Ian, this here’s my American friend Jimmy Buffett.” They shake hands<br />
and Ian orders a shout for the three of us, and asks Jimmy what he does in America. Jimmy<br />
looks at me, laughs and slaps his thigh. “See!”<br />
They knew his songs if you named them, and hummed a few bars, but his name and reputation<br />
hadn’t quite gotten as far as Freemantle yet—partially because the people there pretty much<br />
live a laid back Jimmy Buffet lifestyle anyway, so it isn’t that special.<br />
The America’s Cup races went on for weeks, through November and December, our winter<br />
being their summer, and the competition was fierce. Once there was a break in the action,<br />
before the main showdown between Dennis and the Australians, they had the America’s Cup<br />
Ball.<br />
A black tie affair in which Prince Albert of Monaco, another Ocean City neighbor, was the guest<br />
of honor, the America’s Cup Ball is the principal social affair of the entire event, and everyone<br />
has a smashing good time. I knew Albert from Ocean City, where his family has a beach house<br />
on the street where I lived, and I saw his mother give the winning trophy to Graham Hill at the<br />
1970 Monaco Grand Prix, but we only nodded at each other on the dance floor.<br />
All of the best Australian bands took turns performing, and about three o’clock in the morning<br />
the emcee said, “We understand that the American pop star Jimmy Buffet is in the house and<br />
we’d like him to come up here and sing us a song.”<br />
I hadn’t seen Jimmy all evening, but he came through the crowd towards me laughing and<br />
said, “Now I’m a Pop Star, how about that Kelly?”<br />
Then he grabs me by the arm and leans over and says in my ear, “Do you believe this? I’m in<br />
a suit and tie and I’m still UNDERdressed.” Just then a flash went off and somebody took a<br />
picture of us. [See photo on right]<br />
While all the other men wore black tie<br />
tuxedos, Jimmy had on this white suit<br />
and white tie, thus expressing his casual<br />
individuality without insulting our Aussie<br />
guests.<br />
A few days later, at the Sail & Anchor,<br />
Jimmy was saying that he was<br />
disappointed that he didn’t get a chance<br />
to play for Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes<br />
crew, who were always sailing, either<br />
practicing or competing. So one night Bill Kelly and Jimmy Buffett<br />
he threw a party for the crew at the<br />
Freemantle Beach Bar, where he gave them a good show.<br />
I had met a local Australian singer-songwriter at the Eagle’s (Australian rules) football stadium<br />
a few weeks earlier, and she had tickets to see Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton at the arena,<br />
but I convinced her Jimmy would be better.
“Who’s Jimmy Buffett?” she wanted to know.<br />
I don’t know how the Rogers and Parton show went, but Jimmy was tremendous, playing<br />
acoustical guitar with another local guitarist who backed him on rhythm, with a few dozen<br />
people at the Beach Bar in Freemantle, Australia. [See photo below]<br />
A few nights later I was having dinner with<br />
a friend in this Italian restaurant when<br />
the waiter brought us over a bottle of<br />
champagne, saying that it was compliments<br />
of the gentleman at a nearby table. I look<br />
over and it’s Jimmy sitting with an older<br />
man.<br />
“Jimmy Buffett,” I say.<br />
“Jimmy Buffett?!” the waiter exclaimed “I didn’t recognize him.”<br />
“Yeah, that’s Jimmy,” I said, but as soon as I said it I knew it was a big mistake.<br />
Sure enough, the waiter asked Jimmy if he sign an autograph, pose for a picture and then<br />
would he sing a song. Jimmy politely signed the menu, posed for a picture but then declined,<br />
saying he couldn’t sing without a guitar. The waiter said he played acoustic guitar and said<br />
he even knew a few Buffet songs and started asking Jimmy questions about music. Then he<br />
asked if he would sing a few songs if he got him a guitar, he had one in his car, and a few<br />
minutes later the waiter was back, guitar in hand, and Jimmy was serenading a dozen people<br />
and the staff of the restaurant.<br />
I thought how lucky I was to get two free and intimate Jimmy Buffett shows in as many nights.<br />
Later on I apologized to Jimmy for breaking his cover as I knew he didn’t like the attention,<br />
but he shrugged it off and said he really likes the Australians. He then introduced me to the<br />
older man he had dinner with—his dad—saying that he was glad he got the opportunity to sing<br />
a few songs as it made the night a little more special, especially for his pop.<br />
The next day, I was walking across the Stars & Stripes compound when I came across Jimmy<br />
and his dad going the other way, thanked them for the bottle of champagne and impromptu<br />
performance, and stood back and took a picture of them together.<br />
Two decades later, I was really surprised to hear in the news that Buffett was going to turn<br />
the Trump Marina into a Margaritaville Hotel and Casino. When that deal went sour, I thought<br />
that was the end of it. Instead, I was really, really surprised to learn that Jimmy was opening<br />
a Margaritaville beach bar on the<br />
Boardwalk at Resorts. Resorts had<br />
already adopted a 1920s motif to go<br />
with the age of the hotel and capitalize<br />
on the popularity of HBO’s Boardwalk<br />
Empire, so I was wondering how the<br />
Buffett style would fit in with the 20s<br />
motif.<br />
Jimmy and his dad in Freemantle, Australia<br />
I showed up for the press conference<br />
on the boardwalk when the deal was<br />
officially announced and was surprised<br />
again that Jimmy was there himself.<br />
For a guy who now owns hotels, bars<br />
and restaurant chains and puts on multi-million dollar concert tours I was surprised that he<br />
bothered to show up himself, when his minions could handle something like this. Knowing<br />
Jimmy however, I figured he wouldn’t stick around too long with the stiffs in suits, so instead<br />
of standing with the other reporters in front of a makeshift stage on the boardwalk, I waited<br />
for him out back, leaned against his limo and had a smoke with his driver, Al, a young Italian<br />
kid from Chicago.<br />
Al was telling me that Jimmy doesn’t just plan on opening up a Margaritaville Bar and<br />
Restaurant on the Boardwalk—he has bigger ambitions. He wants to hold a week long music<br />
festival like they do in New Orleans, to have a bar bands bonanza like they have in Austin,<br />
Texas and to bring America’s Cup boats to Atlantic City and hold the races right off Resorts so<br />
you can watch them from the hotel rooms.<br />
“He’s excited and he’s got big ideas,” Al was saying when Jimmy came out of the stage door of<br />
Resorts. Al opened the back seat door for him. Jimmy’s wearing shorts, a green shirt, brown<br />
baseball cap and sunglasses.<br />
“Hi Jimmy,” I said, “Remember me from Freemantle?”<br />
“Sure Ned,” Jimmy said with a chuckle that didn’t quite make a laugh, “I remember you<br />
from the Caribbean Club in Key Largo.”<br />
“You’ve come a long way since then,” I said. “Welcome to Atlantic City. Al’s been telling me you<br />
got big plans.”<br />
“Yea, I’m the New Nucky Thompson,” he grins with another fake chuckle, punching his fingers<br />
to his chest.<br />
“I’m in a hurry and gotta go right now,” he said, “but maybe you can show me around town<br />
sometime.”<br />
“Sure, Jimmy,” I said, “but will you do me a favor?”<br />
“Whaddya want?” he said with a reluctant sigh.<br />
“Sometime down the line, when you have the free time, will you do a benefit show for the local<br />
Marine Mammal Stranding Center?”<br />
“Sure thing,” he says. “Anything else?”<br />
“Well, for me, Jimmy, Atlantic City is my backyard, and if you’re the new Nucky, I’d like to have<br />
a small piece of the action, like how about the Island Shirt concession?”<br />
Then snapping his fingers and pointing at me, he cracks a real smile and says, “You got it!”<br />
Then the limo door slams shut and Al jumped in the front seat with a wave and they drove off.<br />
Just then the stage door opened and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sticks his head out<br />
saying, “Is Jimmy here?”<br />
I point to the limo driving off down South Carolina Avenue.<br />
Dressed in black suit and pink tie, the governor has a piece of paper and pen in one hand and<br />
a camera in the other, and wipes the sweat off his brow with his arm while saying, “Shoot, I<br />
wanted to get his autograph and a picture of us together.”<br />
“You’ll get another opportunity for that. He’ll be back,” I said, before suggesting, “You know<br />
governor, you’d be a lot cooler and look a lot more comfortable in an island shirt.”<br />
Bill Kelly’s Jersey Shore Nightbeat Column can be read here<br />
jerseyshorenightbeat.blogspot.com/<br />
WHAT ARE YOU LOOK<strong>IN</strong> AT?<br />
This Irish American comedian, born and<br />
raised in South Philly, was well known for<br />
his vaudeville humor and had a statue<br />
erected in his honor in 2003 on the same<br />
place where his nightclub once stood. The<br />
nightclub which entertained thousands to<br />
packed houses on summer weekends was<br />
a staple of the “old school” Jersey Shore,<br />
which exists now only in our memories.<br />
Born Thomas Francis, he was better known<br />
by shore goers by his stage name. His<br />
shows were hilarious and when his club<br />
closed he even went on to do shows at<br />
the old Sands Casino and the Trump in<br />
Atlantic City, where you might have heard<br />
this one—“A cop found a dead horse in the<br />
road while on patrol, but while filling out<br />
his report he realized he couldn’t spell<br />
Moyamensing Avenue, so he drug him to<br />
Second Street’.<br />
To find the answer,<br />
go to BoardwalkJournal.com<br />
Image by Constance McNelis<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 59
politics<br />
by Harry Hurley, Political Editor of The Boardwalk Journal<br />
The Law of Unintended Consequences:<br />
Langford will prevail in June & November & in the process he may deliver Balles Victory<br />
Lorenzo Langford is the incumbent two-plus term sitting Mayor of Atlantic City and yet he finds himself seated in<br />
Column C in the fast approaching June 4, 2013 primary election.<br />
On its face, this is utterly ridiculous. Langford defeated his opponent (outgoing Atlantic County Freeholder) Charles<br />
Garrett by a 3-1 margin in the March, 2013 vote of the Atlantic City Democratic Committee.<br />
Only in bizarro world could Langford be denied the Regular Democratic Column A election ballot placement.<br />
However, State Senator Jim Whelan, D-2 and Atlantic County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Schroeder had other<br />
diabolical ideas in mind. They had long ago promised Garrett that he would receive the party line.<br />
They made Garrett sweat for a while, but in the end they kept their word. Garrett was expecting to receive the formal<br />
endorsement at the Atlantic County Democratic Convention. However, this did not occur. They endorsed no one at<br />
this meeting.<br />
This left some wondering, would they double-cross<br />
Garrett? Whelan was hearing from many Atlantic City<br />
residents who were very displeased with the way he<br />
was treating Langford.<br />
Whelan blinked for a moment, but he didn’t balk. He<br />
stayed true to his hand-picked guy (Garrett) and as<br />
they say in political terms, he has now made his bed<br />
and he must lay in it.<br />
Harry Hurley is Political Editor of<br />
The Boardwalk Journal. Hurley is the<br />
president of Harry Hurley Consulting<br />
and Communications, LLC. He<br />
hosts the daily talk radio program<br />
“Hurley in the Morning” 6-10 a.m.<br />
weekdays on Townsquare Media,<br />
WPG Talk Radio 1450, where he also<br />
This sloppy decision may prove to be one of those moments of truth that happen during a campaign that actually<br />
ends an electoral career.<br />
Langford left nothing to chance and he formally bracketed his slate of candidates with Atlantic County Clerk Ed<br />
McGettigan prior to Schroeder making his selection of Garrett public.<br />
Langford will be joined in Column C by incumbent Councilman at Large, George Tibbitt, Mo Delgado and Frank<br />
Gilliam. This is also a huge development because it now makes Column C look like the regular Democratic Column.<br />
The incumbent slate will be almost impossible to beat. They remain popular and the voters of Atlantic City know dirty<br />
insider politics when they see it.<br />
Adding to Garrett’s upcoming electoral woes is the Mayoral candidacy of former Atlantic City PBA President David<br />
Davidson. Davidson is running a highly professional campaign. He confirmed on-air (“Hurley in the Morning”) on WPG<br />
Talk Radio 1450 that Whelan had asked him to leave the race.<br />
This is both corrupt and desperate. Well-placed sources have advised that the Whelan camp has just about resigned<br />
itself to the fact that Langford can’t be beaten. However, this inconvenient truth will not stop their aggressive<br />
attempt to try and unseat him. They badly want him out. Whelan has never gotten over the fact that Langford<br />
vanquished him from office a dozen years ago.<br />
Any votes Davidson earns on Primary Election Day would have gone to Garrett. Langford benefits greatly by<br />
Davidson’s candidacy. It splits the anti-incumbent votes.<br />
Some people think that the Garrett candidacy can capture political lightening in a bottle the way Bob Levy was able<br />
to defeat Langford in the June 2005 Primary.<br />
The present circumstances couldn’t be more different. First, Levy’s pre-packaged story (before I broke the news that<br />
he had stolen honor and that he was falsely posing as a United States Special Forces Green Beret) was straight from<br />
“central casting.” Levy was a popular life-long Atlantic City figure.<br />
And, the political powers that desperately wanted Langford out of office in 2005 had raised more than $1 million<br />
dollars on Levy’s behalf. Most importantly, Levy benefited by being hand-picked by Craig Callaway, who wanted to be<br />
Mayor himself, but, the federal criminal sting operation called “Operation Broken Boards” halted Callaway’s electoral<br />
ambitions.<br />
Yet, in the end, it was Callaway’s once mighty and vaulted political get-out-the-vote machine that powered Levy to<br />
victory.<br />
Levy would be inaugurated as Mayor, but wouldn’t make it two years before resigning from office in disgrace after<br />
being federally prosecuted.<br />
serves as the senior programming<br />
consultant. He has hosted various<br />
programs for local television and<br />
is the editor and publisher of<br />
his news and information<br />
website, www.harryhurley.com. Send<br />
comments to HarryHurley@aol.com.<br />
Langford was returned as the duly elected Mayor<br />
following the results of a special election and he has<br />
held the seat ever since.<br />
The Langford-Garrett election is not in<br />
doubt. Langford will win. However, Whelan<br />
must soon prepare himself for the law of<br />
unintended consequences.<br />
Langford has already confirmed publicly on “Hurley<br />
in the Morning” that he will not run in the Regular Democratic Column in the November 5, 2013 General Election if he<br />
wins the June Primary Election.<br />
This could be the difference in Whelan’s upcoming election versus Atlantic County Sheriff Frank Balles.<br />
Balles faces a surprise June Republican Primary state senate election himself versus Marybeth Bennett. Balles will<br />
have no problem prevailing in his Primary Election.<br />
With Langford, Tibbitt, Delgado and Gilliam all running away from Whelan in November, this could hurt Whelan’s<br />
margin of victory over Balles in Atlantic City.<br />
It will also prove very damaging to Longport Mayor Nick Russo and Northfield Mayor Vince Mazzeo’s campaign for<br />
the New Jersey General Assembly versus popular Republican incumbents John Amodeo and Chris Brown.<br />
Democrats running in Atlantic County need a huge voting plurality coming out of Atlantic City in order to win Countywide.<br />
And, while Atlantic City consistently votes monolithically (for any Democratic candidate), the blatant disrespect show<br />
to Langford by Whelan and Schroeder will negatively affect them in the November General election.<br />
The inside political baseball being played against Langford by Whelan is about as dirty as it gets.<br />
In the end, Langford will prevail on June 4th in the Primary Election by a wide margin. And, Langford will win by an<br />
even greater margin on November 5, 2013 in the General Election against the Republican Nominee Don Guardian,<br />
who serves as Executive Director of the Atlantic City Special<br />
Improvement District.<br />
And in the process, Langford may defeat Whelan again. This<br />
time without even running directly against him.<br />
Harry Hurley<br />
The Voice of<br />
South Jersey<br />
Weekdays 6am to 10am<br />
60 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
Atlantic City....<br />
A Place We Call Home<br />
By Ken Calemmo and Kristine Kodytek<br />
Thomas Edison opened the world’s first<br />
central electric power plant in New York<br />
City in 1881. Just five years later, the<br />
Electric Light Company of Atlantic City<br />
and the Bridgeton Electric Light of New<br />
Jersey were incorporated (and the<br />
history of Atlantic City Electric began).<br />
The local providers used two generators<br />
from Edison’s company. That year, the<br />
Electric Light Company of Atlantic<br />
City generated electricity for fifty<br />
customers. Electricity was available<br />
from dusk until 1 a.m. for a price of<br />
$2.00 per kilowatt-hour.<br />
Around-the-clock electricity wouldn’t be<br />
available in Atlantic City for a few more<br />
years, but that didn’t stop tourists from<br />
visiting the beach, The Boardwalk, and<br />
the beautiful hotels Atlantic City had to<br />
offer. Then, in 1887, Atlantic City used<br />
daytime electricity to power The Trolley<br />
and the first electric Merry Go Round—<br />
“The Flying Horses on the Beach.”<br />
In 1905, an Atlantic City ordinance<br />
granted Atlantic City Electric the<br />
municipal consent to construct its<br />
infrastructure in the city for the next one<br />
hundred years.<br />
As New Jersey’s dependency on<br />
electricity grew, New Jersey Governor<br />
Woodrow Wilson established one of the<br />
nations first Public Utility Commissions.<br />
In the 1920s, you could spot Atlantic<br />
City meter readers on motorcycles<br />
<strong>THE</strong> HISTORY OF ATLANTIC CITY ELECTRIC<br />
recording electric usage. And at that<br />
time, The Boardwalk was lined with<br />
illuminated billboards advertising<br />
Broadway shows that were coming to<br />
Atlantic City. About 168 shows would<br />
come each year.<br />
Atlantic City Electric and the Electric<br />
Company of New Jersey united their<br />
eastern and western service territories in<br />
1927. As electricity use continued to<br />
grow, Atlantic City captured the nation’s<br />
attention by celebrating the 50th<br />
anniversary of incandescent lighting.<br />
To encourage the public to buy and use<br />
electric appliances, Atlantic City<br />
Electric’s “Home Service Girls”<br />
demonstrated a variety of convenient<br />
household washing machines and<br />
refrigerators in 1931.<br />
In 1960, Atlantic City Electric<br />
celebrated its 75th anniversary and the<br />
completion of a 230 thousand<br />
volt transmission line<br />
spanning the Delaware River.<br />
The B.L. England generation<br />
station, named after ACE’s<br />
president, at Beesley’s Point,<br />
was also completed.<br />
To prepare for the 1964<br />
Democratic National<br />
Convention, Atlantic City<br />
Electric installed thirty-three<br />
tons of air conditioning<br />
capacity to Boardwalk Hall,<br />
known then as Atlantic City’s<br />
Convention Center.<br />
In the late 1970s when consumers were<br />
now encouraged to install new, energy<br />
efficient appliances in their homes, the<br />
company was the first utility in the<br />
nation to require a minimum efficiency<br />
standard for air conditioners.<br />
In 1977, electric gaming became a<br />
popular way to attract visitors to<br />
Atlantic City’s first combination hotel<br />
and casinos. Later, in 1994, Atlantic<br />
City Electric would establish a line of<br />
businesses specifically to support the<br />
hotel and casino industry.<br />
Atlantic City Electric continues to keep<br />
the lights ON. Now a subsidiary of<br />
Pepco Holdings, Inc., ACE provides<br />
safe and reliable electric service to<br />
547,00 customers everyday throughout<br />
southern New Jersey.<br />
The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 61
62 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013
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The Boardwalk Journal | May 2013 | 63