Friday, Sept. 26, 1997 | 9:58 a.m.
"I thought this was going to happen," said Aladdin hotel-casino porter Essie Jones as she scooped cigarette butts out of ashtrays. "But knowing about it doesn't make it any better when it happens."
Jones, a single mother, is one of 1,485 Aladdin employees who were notified Thursday that they will lose their jobs when the 31-year-old resort closes its doors Nov. 25.
Richard Goeglein, president of Aladdin Gaming Ltd. Liability Corp., a subsidiary of owner Sigman Sommer Family Trust of New York, said the hotel will be demolished or imploded sometime after Nov. 25 to make room for a $1 billion hotel complex with 3,600 rooms.
Goeglein, charged with heading the development of the new hotel, said the 7,000-seat Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts will be spared during a two-year construction schedule.
"I guess I'm going to take a little time off and then I'll look for another job," Jones said. "There are a lot of good people here, and I'll miss them."
Among the good people at the hotel, Goeglein said, are the staff members of JMJ Inc., who have operated the hotel-casino since June 1992.
"JMJ has done a superb job," Goeglein said. "They've been a good tenant and a wonderful operating company."
Casino sources said the management team led by Bill Zender, a former 21 card counter, offered many double-deck 21 games as well as six-deck shoe games with good "penetration," meaning most of the cards were dealt out before the shuffle, in an effort to increase play.
"Bill tried to run a casino that gave the player a decent shot," said Tom Guth, vice president of JMJ.
But in the era of themed megaresorts, it takes more than liberal blackjack games and $4.95 baked chicken dinners to lure the crowds.
Goeglein said executives tried to work out a way to refurbish the old Aladdin to blend in the old structure with the new facility, but they finally decided it couldn't be done.
"It's very difficult to take a building of that era and that age and integrate it into a major new complex," Goeglein said.
The Sommer Family Trust has entered into a joint venture with TrizecHahn Corp. of San Diego to build a $700 million, 2,600-room hotel with a 125,000-square-foot casino, and a $300 million, 400-room, music-themed sister hotel at Harmon Avenue and Audrey Street.
The main hotel will also include "Desert Passage," a 450,000-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex with a Middle Eastern theme.
Alberta Davidson, vice president of marketing for TrizecHahn, said the shopping mall could be set along the lines of an Indiana Jones film.
TrizecHahn owns and manages 28 regional shopping centers across the country, including the Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas and Horton Plaza in San Diego.
Another partner in the new Aladdin is London Clubs International, a London-based developer of European and Middle East casinos, which announced earlier this year that it will invest $50 million for a 25 percent interest in the hotel.
All the talk of high-end shopping malls and lavish gaming areas provided little comfort Thursday to Shelly Kanapb, a clerk in the hotel liquor store.
Kanapb and her husband, a construction worker, the parents of four children, moved to Las Vegas a year ago from Joshua Tree, Calif., to find opportunity.
Instead, Kanapb found in her pay envelope a 60-day notice of closure, as required by federal law.
"What are you going to do, cry?" Kanapb asked. "My husband and I don't know what we're going to do. We might move."
Cage cashier Robert Santiwan said the timing of the hotel closure -- two days before Thanksgiving -- is what really depresses him.
"I guess there's not much to give thanks for," Santiwan said.
Still, Santiwan said he's not worried about the future.
"This is Las Vegas," he said. "There are tons of jobs."
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