With 3 big high profile objectors, I am sure now that Nottinham Magistrates Court will adjourn my case on April 26th, so that they have more time to document and put forward their cases against Dusk Till Dawn, I just hope they adjorn it for weeks......not months. Its all very furstrating, I even wrote a humble letter to Gala giving them my committment that it would be a POKER ONLY venue, but they just wrote back telling me where to stick it. With me being banned from all Grovensors and now this, clearly I am not on top in their xmas card list.
Again, I just feel so bad for all of the people I have employed to work in the club, as they are having to do "desk jobs" for me, when they joined to work in a poker club, but I have tried my best, the legislation and big casino bodies are just too strong to push things forward, they are experts at putting hurdles in place. The costs to me of all these delays are so bad that I dare not even calculate them anymore!
On a positive side, the club looks amazing, its going to be such a fantastic place to play poker and socalise, Nick and Lee have done a great job bearing in mind they had no experience of re-fitting a "casino", every day it gets better and better, as new fixtures and fittings are added, and we get more paint on the walls. We can be proud of what we have done, at the end of the day, when we were all at school together, who would have though us donkeys would do something like this?
Another frustration is the online business, this was set up as a vehicle to run satelittes into the Club, give online players "comps" etc, obviously with no club open, I feel that we are running more of an online poker business, not a live poker club, which was not the main reason for setting up this venture in the first place. I guess all these problems will make it worthwile, and of course, it has crossed my mind that we could open without the local magistrates courts blessing, like so many other poker clubs, but I have given my commitment to the Gambling Commission, and I will stick to that.
I had hoped to go to the Bellagio this week to play the WPT Final, but I just dont feel like playing at the moment..........and someone will probabaly ask me "when is the club opening"! Its amazing how many people know about Dusk Till Dawn, and can't wait for us to open, I hope we don't let them down, and are able to hold the biggest and best tournaments there............I'm sure we will, when all of these extra hurdles are jumped. I don't know what the casinos are frightened of, in fact, I don't think they actually are, I just think that they don't like to think that a small operation like DTD can set something like this up, they enjoy their monoploly.
Let's face it, we wont be taking much business of them, gamblers will always play blackjack and roulette, and I have always said that I was willing to work around their poker schedules, so poker players have the choice and we do not clash events etc. I mean, they are the big boys, they dictate the market, and us "minnows" will do what we are told, I'm a realist, but this does not seem to make any difference, and they are clearly going to fight me and DTD right until our doors open.
How do I feel.......cheesed off. Haha.
