Sands AC Liquidation Sale

[NJchick]

No more card dealers, just deals
Shoppers begin rushing to Sands to pick it clean before walls come down
Friday, May 04, 2007
BY JUDY DeHAVEN
Star-Ledger Staff
There really is a market for a used toilet.

And not just for one. Hundreds. Some with matching bidets.

Add an old Jacuzzi from the high-roller suite ($1,495), a couple of fake marble columns ($550 each), a golden king bed with canopy so tacky it could only have come from a casino ($2,250) and a few mirrors (prices vary), and you, too, can recreate the experience of the now-defunct Sands Casino Hotel.

The Sands, which closed last November, is holding Atlantic City's biggest garage sale. And everything must go. Really.

From martini glasses to urinals, artwork to escalators, poker tables to chandeliers, the Sands is selling it all. Yes, that includes a steam room supposedly installed at the request of Don Rickles; an old mirror Ol' Blue Eyes may or may not have used in the legendary Copa Room; and the gigantic gambling icons in front of the building.

In Atlantic City, everything has a price, even the memories. When the Sands kicked off its liquidation sale to the public yesterday at 10 a.m., the masses came for their piece.

The line started at 7:30 a.m. By the time the doors opened, it stretched around the building, down a city block.

For $10 to park (double the usual price), $10 to get in and the willingness to pay 10 percent on top of the asking price, the crowds came for deals and memorabilia, for one last look at their favorite haunt, and for a peek inside the high-roller life.

Among the first in line were Charles Johnson, a 23-year-old Philadelphian scoping out cheap TVs; Shawn Cooney, a 27-year-old James Dean look-alike from Parsippany who was in the market for barstools; and Carolyn Terry, who said she dealt one of the first hands of poker at the Sands 14 years ago, when the Sands was the first A.C. casino to offer poker.

Terry got off her shift from Showboat at 5 a.m., won $900 gambling somewhere else, and got in line before 8.

She wasn't interested in nostalgia. She was looking for new bedroom furniture.

And on it went.

In its heyday, the Sands was the place to be -- but that was a long time ago. Pinnacle Entertainment, which bought the Sands last year, plans on imploding the building this fall and replacing it with a $1.5 billion gambling resort.


BARGAIN HUNTING

Kim Townsend, Pinnacle Atlantic City's executive vice president, said the sale will run until everything is sold or June 10, whichever comes first.

The items are too numerous to count. National Content Liquidation is still pricing the stuff, and new things are to be unveiled every day.

About the only items not on sale are the slot machines, which already have been sent to other casinos, and the chips, which by state law can no longer be sold to the public.

National Content will cart away whatever is left. But Don Hayes, the company's vice president, sounded confident nothing will be left to cart.

The Sands held an "invitation-only" event Tuesday, mostly for hoteliers and restaurateurs, but Hayes said the bulk of the buyers have been individual bargain-hunters.

If they turn around and sell the Sands memorabilia on eBay, Hayes is not bothered. "It gets rid of it faster," he said.

Shortly after 10 a.m. yesterday, Hayes greeted people from behind a microphone in the showroom, barking out instructions and giving out directions. Pinnacle let in a few dozen shoppers at a time. After the first 800, hundreds more were still outside, waiting hours for their turn.


ELECTRONICS, NOT BLACKJACK

There was an eeriness to the scene inside. The casino floor -- once filled with frenzied gamblers and rows of glittering slot machines and table games -- was now a showroom filled with frenetic shoppers. Electronics were in the high-limit blackjack area. The baccarat pit was a shop for cookware. Sands memorabilia were being sold from behind the desk of the hotel lobby.

On a wall upstairs, a blinking neon sign flashed the last progressive jackpot paid out by the Sands -- $40,349.39.

Rows of maid's carts were parked in the Skylight ballroom, still holding the toiletries, dirty mops and trash left in them when the Sands closed.

The Copa Room was dimly lit and smelled faintly of mold, as if the ghosts of entertainers past were inhabiting the stage. Or perhaps it was the Frank Sinatra being heard on the CD player.

This is where the performers -- Cher, Jerry Seinfeld and, of course, Sinatra -- put the Sands on the map. And now its contents are for sale, too: the lights, the sound equipment, the drums and the mike stands. Not to mention the burgundy-colored, leopard-print booths. Even the 30-inch chrome handrail along the stairs had a price -- $35.

Mike Hanahan, the Copa Room's lighting director for 27 years, was back Tuesday, reminiscing a little, but also to repurchase stage lights he had bought for the Sands, this time for his new employer, the Hilton.

No one seemed to leave empty-handed.

There was Stu Weiss, owner of the Atlantic City News Agency, who came for the memorabilia but left with a $45 vacuum. And Anthony Favocoso, who stopped in to scope out restaurant equipment but left with a $425 poker table.

And Renee Khadiwall, who complained the prices were way too high but still ended up with three carts of stuff, including a carpet cleaner she didn't dare let out of her sight because people kept trying to take it.


UPSTAIRS BOUNTY

Some visitors had little time for glassware and dishes -- not when they could roam the high-roller suites.

Suite 2106 was the biggest, done up in pink marble and lots of mirrors and spread over two levels.

Nicole Zuvic, 28, was not impressed. "Yuck," the New York City woman said. "I think it's disgusting. I'm used to Bellagio."

The slightly smaller, bilevel suite, Room 2101, got better reviews. Karen Logan wanted to move the entire gold and earth-toned extravaganza to her Atlantic City residence.

Then Sherry and Luke Fistere bounded in, clutching their find: a king-size bedspread from one of the 20th-floor suites.

The Fisteres had hopped on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry from Delaware at 7 a.m. just to get to the Sands. For the used bedspreads.

"These are custom-made -- you can't buy them in department stores," said Sherry Fistere, who paid $65 for a burnt-orange and red bedspread she figured was worth $500. "And these are my colors!"

She bought three. And she planned to come back for more.

"I'm going to come back for a nice leather chair I saw in there," Fistere said. "But I have to leave now -- my hands are killing me from carrying this stuff."

© 2007 The Star Ledger