"I feel like I fit in here," she said gesturing toward the dance floor. "I am so proud I lived to see this."
"This" is Prohibition, the not-quite-2-month-old danceteria that is the first gay nightclub in an Atlantic City casino. It's one of a number of innovations Resorts co-owner/CEO Dennis Gomes, who assumed control of the property in December, hopes will return the financially beleaguered gaming hall to profitability.
Located in a space formerly used as a high-roller lounge, Prohibition is small compared with dance clubs in some other casinos. But its multistory ceiling keeps it from having a claustrophobic feel. Fake palm trees decorate the dance floor's corners, and the DJs' music is mostly contemporary stuff as opposed to that played in Resorts' other disco, the '70's- and '80s-themed Boogie Nights.
Perhaps the only things that identify Prohibition as a gay nightspot are the predominance of male patrons and the surprisingly graphic (though not hard-core) homoerotic videos projected on its large video screens.
Gomes, a veteran gaming-industry executive, has long been known for his out-of-the-box marketing strategies. While running Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, he brought in such attractions as the Tic-Tac-Toe-playing chicken and a huge exhibit dedicated to the history of torture.
But installing a disco specifically - if not exclusively - for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender patrons never occurred to him until the subject was broached by several of his friends, including John Schultz, a veteran gay-nightlife entrepreneur who owned, among other Atlantic City hot spots, the now-closed Studio Six.
"John said to me, 'You know what would be great at Resorts? A gay nightclub,' " recalled Gomes. "That's when I realized there were no gay nightclubs in any casino in the U.S. and probably the world." The idea, he continued, melded perfectly with what Gomes described as his "philosophy of inclusion and loving everyone."
