- H, everyone, Steve Adubato, we kickoff the program all the way from Atlantic City.

We have the mayor of the great city of Atlantic City, Mayor Small, Marty Small.

Mayor, good to have you with us again.

- Yes, my pleasure to be with you, Steve, and your viewing audience.

And it's a great day here in the city of Atlantic City.

Can we say great day?

- It is a great day, and listen, I was expecting that from you.

I went back and looked at the last interview we did and I said, "The mayor's always upbeat and positive.

He forces the rest of us to be as well."

And that's a good thing.

Mayor, do this for us.

Talk about food insecurity issues in Atlantic City, A and B, is there still no supermarket in Atlantic City, which is devastating on so many levels, please?

- Yes, we have currently food insecurities here in the great city of Atlantic City.

We had the EDA through the governor invest $5 million to help out the situation temporarily.

Last week I went out to the Back Maryland section of the city and they have a bus, which is a mobile grocery store and it will be out there two days a week.

The prices are fairly good.

Listen, to put it blunt, we failed with the supermarket.

When I say we, we as a collective hold with the city.

We had a deal in place with ShopRite.

- I know.

- Just didn't work with the rising costs of construction.

One thing led to another, and we let the residents down.

However, we did put out another request for proposal with CRDA, which came back insufficient.

And we still are committed to bring a name brand grocery store here for the good people of Atlantic City.

- And the CRDA, if I'm not mistaken, is the Casino Redevelopment Authority.

- Yeah, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, yes.

- Mayor, talk to us about public safety.

There's a $5 million camera installation initiative in Atlantic City.

What is that initiative all about?

A and B, what impact would it have on reduction of crime, please?

- Yes, it's going to have a tremendous impact.

All major crime statistics are down.

We want to continue that.

When we look at the great city of Atlantic City, we are an international tourist destination, and we want to give our cops, the fine men and women in blue of the Atlantic City Police Department, all the tools that are conducive for clean and safe streets in the great city of Atlantic City.

And I believe that this project will do just that.

It has been previously discussed by prior administrations, prior city council.

And I'm just happy through our negotiations with the State of New Jersey that in the '23 budget we've had $16.8 million extra in supplemental transitional aid, and we earmarked $5 million.

The project is underway.

The contractor is JCT Solutions, and the cameras are going to be equipped with artificial intelligence.

So if something happened, you could say, "I'm looking for a person with a red, long-sleeve shirt," and all the cameras in Atlantic City that picks up a red, long-sleeve shirt will show someone with a red, long-sleeve shirt and you just narrow it by a process of elimination- - Well, Mayor, the other piece that, I'm sorry for interrupting you, is community policing is a big part of this.

Beyond the technology, there's a different approach to policing.

- Yes, we have a new deployment plan, which our officers favor very much.

We also were just successful for getting more cops.

We were awarded a COPS grant, which we will hire 30 new officers.

We are currently working with the Board of Education, my wife is the superintendent of schools, to talk about putting some officers in schools, which some of these grants, we're looking at a motorcycle unit.

And I wanna form a community policing, particularly on Atlantic and Pacific Avenue, where a lot of people loiter, and we need to clean that up.

So the Small administration is definitely putting their money where its mouth is when it comes to the Atlantic City Police Department.

- Mayor, help us on this.

By the way, if you just joined us, we're talking to the mayor of Atlantic City, Mayor Marty Small.

Mayor, I was just down in Atlantic City for a seminar that I was leading, and I thought, and I will admit this, I did stop in to the casino that I was at.

I enjoyed blackjack, moderate, moderate gambler.

But I gotta ask you, I was struck by the smoking situation there.

And help us understand why legislation that has been sitting around for a long time there to ban smoking in every area of the casinos to protect workers and protect customers, A, why hasn't that moved forward, and B, you've called for a compromise, why hasn't it moved forward?

And B, what's that compromise, Mayor?

- Well, listen, unfortunately, in the position that I'm in, when you make a decision, people are either wanna agree or disagree.

I'm not against the casino workers who rightfully express their opinion on that it shouldn't be smoke in there.

I'm coming from it with a global perspective.

Again, losing a mother and grandmother to cancer, I'm sympathetic and empathetic.

However, when you look at the statistics, when Atlantic City tried no smoking, it was a disaster.

It was at Revel, Revel went bankrupt several times before it closed for a while, then it was reopened as Ocean Resorts, which is now ironically one of the top three casinos here in the great city- - That's where I was, at Ocean.

So you're saying it's an economic, I'm sorry for interrupting there, you're saying banning smoking in casinos is an economic thing and we will lose to surrounding states.

- No, it's not about losing to surrounding states, because everybody's chipping away at what Atlantic City used to be.

And I'm the one that always said we need to diversify our offerings, more family entertainment, et cetera.

As far as the gaming situation go, I'm looking at numbers.

When any disaster happens at a casino, let's just take COVID, yes, the casinos survived, but for a long time we were operating at 25% of the casino floor.

You can't hire 100% of the workforce if you're operating at a 25% capacity.

So when we look at the smoking situation, Revel, now Ocean, came in with that mantra that it was gonna be no smoking, it was a smoke-free casino.

So unfortunately, way before my time, gambling and smoking goes hand in hand.

However, we are not letting the casinos off the hook.

Can the air filtration system be better?

Absolutely.

Can there be something that can be done that could strike a compromise?

I want everybody to win.

I want the workers to win.

We value their health and safety.

And at the same time, our biggest industry, you have to understand the casinos are the biggest tax payer in the great city of Atlantic City.

They provide the most amount of jobs.

And I went through it all.

We went through Sandy, when we had to tell the world that the boardwalk didn't wash away, it was another local area where the boardwalk washed away.

We saw four casinos close.

We saw people write Atlantic City off.

We went through a state takeover, and now the city is excelling, the government is getting raped, abused by Moody's and Standard & Poor's and we're collecting over 98% of taxes.

Any dip in that is gonna hurt the great city of Atlantic City, casino workers are gonna be outta jobs, people are not gonna pay their taxes as much.

And more importantly, when you look at the totality of this situation, it'll be a detriment to the same State of New Jersey that depend on the casino industry.

We here in the great city of Atlantic City, we don't get luxury tax, we don't get parking tax.

We don't get anything off of the taxes from the casinos.

The State of New Jersey's own report in 2018 showed that $154.5 million left the great city of Atlantic City, not a penny, and went to the State of New Jersey for senior programs and the other services provided from the benefit of the industry.

- You're listening to Mayor Marty Small of Atlantic City.

Mayor, as always, you honor us, thank you so much.

- Thank you so much.

- You guys stay with us, we'll be right back.

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