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Moats & Thugs. A windfall came Sooi's way: one of his indignant tenants grumpily moved away. Sooi invited one Jacob Moerland down from The Hague to open a casino in the vacant house, for the benefit of Dutchmen who are not allowed to gamble in their own country. Later, an ambitious Dutchman named Herman Bernhard showed up, opened a competing Benelux Casino complete with free drinks, a parking lot and twelve croupiers. By 1954, five casinos were operating—though not always smoothly. At one point, Bernhard had a moat dug around Moerland's Woodside Club to prevent customers from either going in or coming out. Moerland, who now owned a piece of his own in the disputed 35 acres, retaliated by importing gangs of thugs. Finally, after Brussels and The Hague were unable to settle the muddle, the dispute went this week before the International Court of Justice.
Sooi, the man who started it all, claimed this as a great victory. "I am fighting for an idealistic case," he declared. "Everybody says that I make a lot of money. Anybody who says that to my face will find my bloodhounds after him." But what if the International Court of Justice decides that Lots 91 and 92 are Belgian as Sooi claims? "If Holland loses the case," says Burgomaster de Grauw, "it means that inhabitants paid taxes to the wrong country, that some people were never born, and that others died quite illegally. The complications will be enormous: we may end up rewriting the history of the last century. For God's sake, let Holland win, or we'll never solve our problems."