Would you live near a casino?
That seems like a fair question to me with a big State House hearing on casino gambling coming up Thursday.
Casino supporters for years have pointed to polls that show roughly 60 percent support for expanded gambling among Massachusetts residents.
That’s not terribly surprising given we have some of the highest lottery sales in the country.
But before lawmakers start counting all that extra casino cash rolling in, they might consider the Bay State’s reputation as a particularly difficult place to get big development projects through the local approval process.
If new apartment projects with a few token “affordable’’ units are enough to create a furor in the typical Bay State suburb or small town, just imagine the kind of town hall bickering a proposal for a Foxwoods style casino might generate.
Beacon Hill, as it prepares to hear gambling supporters and foes later this week, is not totally clueless about the challenges of getting big casino projects approved in our ornery little state.
Some lawmakers, looking to pass off a very hot political potato, are pushing for a “commission’’ that would select sites on which casinos might be built.
That still does not solve the likely NIMBY backlash most if not all of these proposals will face, and frankly, maybe with some justification given how high home prices and values are around here.
We got a preview of how heated the debate can become when the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe won a hard-fought vote in Middleboro back in 2007 for a proposal for a $1 billion casino.
The tribe, one but not after an extraordinary pledge to pump millions into town coffers.
That proposal now appears on the rocks due to a rift between the tribe and its investors.
Don’t worry, there’s a whole bunch other would-be casino developers out there ready to roll the dice, maybe in a town or neighborhood near you.
But if the Legislature, as appears increasingly likely, gives the green light, each of these proposals will still have to make it through the local approval gauntlet.
No state-appointed “commission” can get around that one.
