7 Days 'Till Punk Rock Bowling 2004!!!!

Ok, here's a little more detail on what's going on:

attention all bowlers,

yesterday at 3:00pm, the courts came into the Castaways Casino and shut the whole place down.

First of all, we here at BYO are determined to make this happen, so don't panic! We already have another bowling alley that we can use, but we will have to bowl in two seperate squads (cuz they only have 56 lanes instead of 106). So bowling can happen.

We are now working to get the accomodations sorted out. Hopefully by the end of the day we will have everything in place and let you know what's going on.
In the meantime, we apologize for the problems, these things happen. We've been through punk rock riots worse than this, so we'll get it all worked out. And, for those of you wondering, we never gave the Castaways a dime. We'll be in touch later today with the new plan.

Thanks for your patience and understanding,

BYO

"The Castaways, Formerly The Showboat, Shuts Down
The Castaways Closes

January 30, 2003

Steve Crupi Reporting

For the second time this month, a big Las Vegas hotel has closed its doors.
This time, it's the Castaways -- a property that opened fifty years ago as
the Showboat.

As the Castaways, the hotel struggled financially and filed for bankruptcy
last summer. Now, bowlers are removing their equipment, the marquee is dark
and customers aren't all that surprised. "Whoever named it the Castaways
named it the wrong name. It just kept going down." "I go back to the day
when it was the Showboat."

One woman told us she had just lost two-thousand dollars playing slots and
was ready to win it back when the announcement was made over the PA system
that the casino was abruptly shutting down. It's a hotel that many will
remember for its famous bowling center and the many tournaments that have
been held there.

Mayor Oscar Goodman says he's hoping someone will rescue the property.
"Binions shut down, but Harrah's comes in and they're gonna make it a great
hotel again."

The hotel owes 22-million dollars to the Vestin Mortgage Company and the
collateral for the loan is the casino. "The cash in the casino was part of
that collateral. Vestin was allowing the Castaways to use that cash with
certain stipulations."

Vestin claims those stipulations were violated, and so with the permission
of the courts, and the supervision of the gaming control board, the
mortgage company came in and collected all of the cash. And what happens
next, is a very big question mark.

The owners of the Castaways had big plans for the place. They bought the
hotel from Harrahs in 2000, and were planning a 57-million dollar expansion
that would have doubled the number of rooms to 780. They also wanted to add
the Holiday Inn brand name to the property."