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Anti-Casino Protest
by
Rich Gardner | 06.28.2009
Casinos are cool places, but in the wrong places, too close to communities, they can be a bad thing. Casino Free Philadelphia is fighting to keep a casino from opening right on Market St.   Personally, I like casinos. I've been to a number of them. Two good places in particular are Atlantic City, NJ and Biloxi, MS. I went to one especially pleasant one with my sister. I wrote to ask which one it was. Here's her answer: We went to Mohegan Sun in CT. There is also a Foxwoods in CT. The only problem with having them far into suburbia (Foxwoods, which was the first in New England) is that the infrastructure takes a real beating. Streets are not built for multiple busses, etc. Mohegan Sun is well planned as it is right off a highway and can handle the traffic.
Mohegan Sun is also good because it's too far away from cities and bedroom communities to attract casual visitors. If you go there, it's going to be because you took a look at your wallet and you made the deliberate and conscious decision that "Yeah, I/we can afford this." Unfortunately, Philadelphia has a group of investors who wanted to put a casino right on the city waterfront and are now trying to place it right on Market St. Casino Free Philadelphia is the group that's organized to try and drive this proposed gambling parlor out of town. From a press release about this event: According to Casino-Free Philadelphia organizer Lily Cavanagh, speaking in front of the panel, "This hearing is a farce. A redesigned SugarHouse casino slots parlor, if built, would be a clear testament to poor city planning, assuming there's any planning going on at all." Cavanagh and three other CFP speakers left large plastic bags full of fake money near the commissioners' table, a reminder to all present that key casino backers, in their effort to impose slots parlors on Philadelphia, have contributed large sums to the election campaigns of many state and local officials.
That's a photo of Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter on the back of someone's head as the Mayor has been disappointing on the issue. Why might that be? Well, it might have something to do with the $4.4 million in campaign contributions that the gambling industry has been putting into the pockets of politicians. Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not limit campaign contributions. In April of this year, the state supreme court overturned a ban on contributions from donors with a financial stake in a casino, so that gaming interests can give as much as they want to elected officials as they lobby to further expand legalized gambling.
Chinatown resident were especially interested in the protest as their community stands to be directly impacted. Casino Free Philaelphia's Contact Page. |
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