Bill To Prevent Icahn from Keeping Taj Mahal Casino License

A new bill introduced in the New Jersey state legislature would bar billionaire Carl Icahn from keeping his Atlantic City casino license.

On Monday, Icahn officially closed the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. And under the current law, he can keep his New Jersey casino license and open another gambling establishment in the near future.

But Democratic state Senate President Steve Sweeney has introduced legislation that would prevent Icahn or anybody else from holding a license for the same casino they closed for five years.

According to Yahoo! Finance, there are fears that Icahn will keep the Taj Mahal shut down over the winter, then re-open as a non-union facility.

Kerry Langan, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE), said that Icahn could keep the license until the DGE orders him to surrender it.

But seeing as how it could take months for the DGE to get everything in line for ordering the license back, he would theoretically have enough time to re-open this spring.

Sweeney told Yahoo! that casino owners “shouldn’t be able to misuse bankruptcy laws and gaming regulations in order to warehouse a license or take money out of the pockets of casino workers, and strip them of benefits simply because they refuse to come to a labor agreement with their employees.”

He added, “This bill encourages casino owners to help rebuild Atlantic City rather than keep their license and throw thousands of families to the curb.”

Many New Jersey lawmakers are unhappy with how the Taj Mahal’s final days played out. Almost 3,000 workers lost their job after their union and Icahn clashed over worker benefits.

Icahn cut healthcare and pension plans when the Taj Mahal was struggling, and Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union fought to get benefits back. Workers went on strike on July 1, which Icahn said was the final straw after he lost $100 million financing the casino.

Sweeney’s bill has already received approval from a state Senate committee, and it’s currently sitting in the state assembly.

While the bill seeks to prevent casino owners from quickly reopening closed casinos under their own , it does allow owners to reopen after working out a deal with unionized workers.

Sweeney’s legislation would not affect Icahn’s license for the Tropicana, where he reached a new deal with the union there.