Monday, Dec. 2, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The Hacienda hotel-casino is history, but its furniture and fixtures will make several area charities a little richer this holiday season.
The Salvation Army, Opportunity Village and other organizations pulled their trucks up to the hotel-casino at the south end of the Strip early today and started to cart away hundreds of rooms of furniture.
"We could have held an auction, but given the time constraints and the fact that this is the holiday season, we just decided to give it away," said Sarah Ralston, spokeswoman for Circus Circus Enterprises, parent company of the Hacienda, which ceased operations at 4 p.m. Sunday.
The 39-year-old Hacienda is set to be imploded at 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve to make room for expansion. The 11-story tower will be reduced to rubble during an event that will be accompanied by a fireworks extravaganza.
The money raised from the sale of the furniture comes at an opportune time for many charities as they deal with federal cutbacks and growing demands of the needy during the yuletide season.
"Our five area thrift stores cannot handle the load of several hundred rooms of furniture, so we will be selling it through a liquidator," said Sumner Dodge, Salvation Army spokesman.
"The money that we raise will go to help our adult rehabilitation program, which really needs the money because of cutbacks in federal funding."
As for the 800 Hacienda employees working at the close of business Sunday, many will go to work for other company properties, including Circus Circus, Luxor and the Excalibur.
Ralston said the bulk of veteran staffers were transferred to the Monte Carlo last summer.
"At the end, we had a great many temps working, some of whom will be getting permanent jobs because we need them with 3,000 rooms opening in three weeks," Ralston said.
The Luxor expansion, including 2,000 rooms, and the Circus Circus expansion, with 1,000, are scheduled to open on Christmas Eve.
"I would estimate we placed 95 percent of those who wanted to remain with the company at other properties," Ralston said, noting that a small percentage opted to go to the soon-to-open New York-New York and Orleans hotel-casinos.
Because so many longtime Hacienda employees had left the resort, Ralston described Sunday's closing as "anti-climactic."
The Hacienda was purchased by Circus Circus in 1995 specifically to allow the company to expand southward on the Strip from Tropicana Avenue to Russell Road. The combination of existing properties, the Hacienda site and adjacent undeveloped land will make up what the company calls its "master-plan mile."
Plans are under way for a mega-resort on the Hacienda site. The project will feature about 3,600 rooms -- more than triple what is there now -- that will connect to a 400-room Four Seasons hotel.
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