N.J. Gov. takes a swing at Vegas

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Gov. Chris Christie has a name for people who visit Las Vegas in the summertime: “Stupid.”

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday to introduce the new head of a state agency tasked with revitalizing Atlantic City, the nation’s second-largest gambling market, Christie couldn’t resist taking a shot at No. 1.

“There is no reason people should go to Las Vegas in the summer,” Christie said. “Why would you go to the middle of the desert in the summer? You’d have to be stupid to do that.”

Instead, the governor offered an alternative.

“Come to Atlantic City, where there’s a beautiful beach. Gamble if you want to,” he said.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn G. Goodman responded by noting that her city has this great thing called air conditioning and noted that New Jersey’s weather hasn’t exactly been all peaches and cream lately, either.

“A little heat with our state-of-the-art, energy-efficient, climate-controlled resorts is certainly much more inviting than having to deal with some of the weather they have had to endure in New Jersey recently,” she told the Associated Press, referring to Hurricane Irene that battered the East Coast last week.

Christie’s comments came at a news conference in which he introduced John Palmieri as the new executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.

The revamped agency is in charge of efforts to make Atlantic City cleaner, safer and more successful in the face of withering competition from casinos in neighboring states.