Spaghetti's job is on fire.

Joliet's Empress Casino

Firefighters stopped blaze from reaching casino barge
By Steve Schmadeke Tribune reporter
March 21, 2009

A massive fire Friday destroyed much of the Egyptian-themed entrance building at the Empress Casino in Joliet, sending dark smoke that was visible for miles rising above the two towering pharaohs alongside the front door.

The blaze, which officials said may have been sparked by welders working on a kitchen duct system, started small about 10 a.m. But within hours more than half the city's Fire Department was working to prevent its spread to the casino barge, Fire Chief Joe Formhals said.No one was injured, and the casino had been evacuated before firefighters arrived, Formhals said. A Joliet paramedic moonlighting at the casino radioed in the fire shortly after it started.

The casino itself seemed to have only minor damage, and Mayor Arthur Schultz said he hoped it would be up and running soon.

Casino officials were waiting for a complete damage estimate from fire officials and did not know when the business would reopen, said Eric Schippers, a spokesman for Penn National Gaming, which runs the Empress and two other Illinois casinos.

Formhals said the building's unusual construction, which includes "void spaces" inside walls and second and third ceilings, may have allowed the blaze to quickly spread past a firewall and kept crews from accurately targeting the fire. He said the city's Building Department will re-examine those aspects of the pavilion's construction in a planned review of the fire.Ceilings in the ballroom and kitchen collapsed, and the fire destroyed a pyramidlike structure atop the building. The fire also destroyed a a hospitality area with shops and restaurants in the building, which was undergoing a $50 million renovation, officials said. A two-story office structure that is part of the pavilion appeared to be safe.

Nearly 30 water tankers from various departments rushed 3,000-gallon loads to battle the fire throughout the afternoon. Ken Mihelich, Joliet's director of management and budget, said the casino brings in about $12 million a year for the city."We'll have to see how they bounce back," Mihelich said. "If anyone can, they can."

Schultz said the fallout from the fire likely will have little impact on the city's finances.

The Empress competes with a second Joliet casino, Harrah's, and the pair have been an economic boon for a city that had a crumbling downtown and dim prospects before getting them in the 1990s. Since then, the city has relied on tax revenue from the casinos to pay for a baseball stadium, a library, a water park and other big-ticket items, and has financed social-service providers like Big Brothers Big Sisters and United Cerebral Palsy. Joliet has grown to become the state's fourth-largest city, with a population of 144,316, according to a special census in 2007.

But gambling revenue has been hit hard by the statewide smoking ban and the economic downturn. Casino revenue plunged about $9 million last year, forcing the city to cut funding for almost all social-service groups that once received money. This year, revenues are still lower than expected and expenses are increasing, so city leaders say they need to cut another $10 million in spending.

Mihelich said he was concerned for casino workers who may face layoffs because of the fire. About 850 people work at the casino.

Spaghetti is one of those 850 people. His job is very important to the casino, and his department will be one of the first to return. But as for now, Spaghetti was told. Don't come back till we call you.

Scared? Yep. Hopeful? Yep. Sad? Yep.

I am scared that Spaghetti will be out of work to long, and that we depend on this job more then his video store job, and the Wrigley job. This is our family insurance, and the main paycheck that feeds two kids, two parents, two cats, and two dogs.

Though I am hopeful too. I know the way the casino works. I know that for every 1/2 hour they are not up and running it's about $10,000.00 lost. And they want to get up and running ASAP with another local casino, and another about 45 minutes away.

Did you ever walk out of work, swearing. Grumbling and just wish it would burn down? Sure. I am sure many of the empress casino employees have thought this. I know I did.

After working a 12 hour shift. Being bitched at by drunk, broke ass customers. After your relief was late, and it caused you to have to cruise the river another hour, and the mandatory over time (which I am sure I would give my right arm for now) and for the cash drawer being of $2300 dollars (in casino land it's not as much as you think. We would have 1.3 million dollar cashier drawers)

Day after day of that you were fed up. You hated your job, but for someone with no collage education starting out at $12 an hour, and the opportunity of .50 raise every time you learned a new level of cashiering was what kept us all coming back. Plus 12 hours of OT wasn't too bad either.

The parking lot is H.U.G.E. there is no parking garage just an insanely large lot. The employees parked SO far away, I probably could have walked from home. We would all walk in through the big sky walk. Right between the two Pharaoh's in the picture. I would wait for my friends there too.

I worked nights. I worked in the stinky, lower level of the boat. EII Diamond level to be exact. I worked with this crazy red head. Yep you guessed it. Aerial. And there was this impressment guy, they moved all the heavy coins (when the casinos had coins) and he was nice. I thought he was cute. We all worked together, on graves. For months.

Laughter was the best cure for a long shift. And we quickly because close friends. Throw in Manda, Matt, Amber, Jen, Nasty, and many others that we considered friends. I left my long term boyfriend and was quickly falling in love with the impressment guy.

The impressment guy, well let's call him by his real name. Spaghetti. He moved to another department, and so did I. Being that we were engaged, working with that much money was getting to look like a conspiracy. And god forbid if I was out of balance ALOT of money.

The picture above pains me. The ballroom where banquets were held, and employee meetings were held is gone. The restaurant Alex is gone. Much of the pavilion is destroyed, and so is one of Spaghetti's work rooms.

The memories are still with us. But the fact that we have to watch it disappear is hard. It's good that there is just minor water to the casino itself. And that after making some sort of entrance for the customers, they will be back in business.

I guess after over 2 years of that being my everyday place to work, the tons of friends, and memories built there, the lives that will be effected, and the jobs that will be lost. That is what hurts.

To some it's just a casino on fire.

To us it is our jobs. Our lives. Our memories.