France, Nevada

Cafés on the Ile -Saint-Louis on Sunday.

August - the Silly News Month

Paris:- Monday, 6. August 2001:- The Carlton gambling casino in Cannes closed last night, because its lease expired. This has thrown its 154 employees into technical unemployment, right in the middle of the high-roller season for one of France's most successful casinos.

The Carlton's closure also closed its Michelin two-star restaurant, La Belle Otéro, which was appreciated by more than just the gamblers.

The casino's lease hasn't been renewed because the Carlton hotel in which it is located plans to take over the casino's seventh-floor space and turn it into luxury suites.

Actually, the casino's management has being trying to transfer its license to the Palm Beach in Cannes, but the Ministry of the Interior hasn't permitted the move because the ownership of the land where the Palm Beach is located is in doubt.

There are six big casino operators in France; Between them they run more casinos than are probably located in Nevada. Most casinos are located on the coasts and throughout southern France.

Paris has no casino. The nearest one is in Enghien-les-Bains. There has been talk of jazzing up the racetrack at Longchamp up with a casino but so far this is only talk. Lyon, for example, has a casino, as does Vichy, which is otherwise famous for its waters.

On Sunday, starting at sunrise, the Place de la Concorde was closed to traffic while it was taken over by a movie crew, to film some wild car chase scenes.

Visitors on the spot got a chance to preview the action, which continued for most of the day - somewhat to the annoyance of Sunday drivers, who are already annoyed about the Seine-side speedway being closed because it is Sunday - and it's August, so it's closed anyway until mid-month.

You can see the results of Sunday's action when 'Le Boulet' hits a screen near you, with its fine line-up of well-known actors - Gérard Lavin, José Garcia and Benoît Poelvoorde - plus the rapper Stomy Bugsy and the PSG football star, Nicolas Anelka.

Police got a bit concerned when they received an alert concerning a whole series of defective ATMs in the Gare de Lyon area - all except for one cash distributor.

This one they staked out, and quickly noticed that it was the zoom-video target of a scooter rider. According to the report, the video images were transferred to an accomplice installed in a big Peugeot 607, who recorded the info with a portable computer.

The cops grabbed these two and found their way to the computer's hard-disk, which revealed that it contained a program for re-encoding plastic cards.

Using close-up video and the software - the report lacks precise details about this - the duo were able to produce fake cards with good numbers - and this is how they got the cash together to buy the big new car for one thing.

While they sit in the slammer, the police continue to seek a third person, who they believe may be the 'brain' behind this mob.

Today's 'Dick Tracey' tip for readers who may have problems with their ATM cards while in Paris - the machines are called 'Distributeurs Automatiques de Billet,' or 'DAB' for short. Logically a card would therefore be called a 'Carte DAB,' but I'm just guessing.

My guess last week that the rickshaw-type vélo taxis are not around this year, turned out to be incorrect. While on the Pont Saint-Louis on Sunday to take in the 'Wedding Band's' act, I saw two of them pass - headed for the Ile Saint-Louis.