Gov. Chris Christie Grants Atlantic City Casinos Permission To Reopen After Sandy

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Atlantic City casinos have permission to open, but it's not clear when they'll be able to.

Gov. Chris Christie announced at 10 a.m. Friday that the roads to Atlantic City were reopening and that the city's casinos had permission to restart operations.

The 12 casinos have been closed since Superstorm Sandy was bearing down on the state last weekend.

Tropicana Casino and Resort President Tony Rodio, who also heads a casino industry group, says the casinos are working on the logistics of opening.

He says it's not clear yet when gamblers will be let in.

The casinos were closed Sunday as Sandy bore down on New Jersey's coast. It was only the fourth time in New Jersey's 34-year history of legal casino gambling that the industry was shut down.

The storm made landfall with hurricane force winds just a few miles from Atlantic City on Monday.

Atlantic City was flooded and an old section of its famous boardwalk - the nation's first - was wrecked in the storm, though other parts of New Jersey's coast were hit even harder.

Last year, casinos were closed when Tropical Storm Irene hit the coast. That three-day shutdown, which came on a busy summer weekend, cost the city $45 million in lost business.

The only other closures were for Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and a state government shutdown in 2006.

The casinos have been on a losing streak over the last several years during a sour economy and because of increased competition from neighboring states.

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