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.
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I would not live near a casino, oh the traffic and heart ache just to get home. Home is my sanctuary and quite frankly the closer I get to home the less I want to deal with idiots and traffic tends to have a lot of people that are perfectly nice otherwise turn into idiots. Once I got into my house I do not know how much I would notice things. It is the same reason why I don't live on a main street, near a shopping center or a mall.
It should be treated like oil companies in Alaska, they should pay out a annual large sum to the citizens of Mass.
Put it on an island in the Boston Harbor or far away from any densely populated areas. It simply does not make sense to put it in the middle of the city.
In today's article by Scott VanVoorhis, the question of NIMBY, not in my backyard, has a perfect example in New Jersey's gaming experiment. In 1976 a Statewide referendum would have allowed any community in the State to have gaming, subject only to a second County vote approving casinos. The vote was 60% to 40% against. But two years later, a Statewide referendum passes 57% to 43%, when gaming was restricted only to Atlantic City. I would expect similar results in Massachusetts. As several polls have indicated, a majority of State residents favor casino gaming, whether for their own enjoyment, to reduce the out flow of $1 billion to CT and RI gaming establishments, or just because of personal choice; where any Massachusetts adult ought to be able to decide how he spends his own earned income. What the State may want to consider is to have a vote in those communities that have an interested developer, before a special commission determines casion or racino locations. This step will save a lot of time in a State badly in need of new taxes, construction and employment.
I'm all for it and I would lnot mind living near a casino. I'm tired of giving my money to CT and RI.
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...
Rona-
This is a misleading statement. You make it sound like people are furious about the town taking a few affordable units, but the furor comes from the fact that the affordable units are merely "token" in nature, and that by including these "token" units, developers are allowed to ride roughshod over local rules.
With respect to the casino question, lots of places generate traffic. The total capacity of Foxwoods, the largest casino in the world, is around 8,000 gamblers. That's less than half of the capacity of suffolk downs, around the same scale as the Tsongas arena. On most days, the casino is operating at a fraction of that capacity. Add in the fact that, unlike an arena or stadium, people don't all come and go at the same time, and as long as sensible infrastructure is included in a casino proposal, the traffic impact should be similar to that of a megaplex movie theater complex.
A big reason the connecticut casinos have generated such traffic problems is the legislature forced them to build in the middle of nowhere, far from the highways, so everyone who wanted to go to the casinos had to drive through sleepy nearby towns. Hopefully, people have learned the mistakes of that model.
The "commission" method is the opposite of the right approach. Commissions work well for things that are necessary but unpleasant (military base closings, prisons, nuclear waste storage, etc), but most casino "supporters" think something closer to "casino gambling should be legal in massachusetts" than "casino gambling is necessary in massachusetts." If casino gambling is legalized in MA, casino developers should have to follow the same process as any other developer in the state, including negotiating with municipalities over the right to build.
Personally, I wouldn't want to live next to a casino. I also wouldn't want to live next to a mall, stadium, or movie megaplex. But if having those places in my town means lower property taxes for me, it's something i'd be willing to consider.
I urge everyone interested in seeing how casinos impact the local community to visit Atlantic City. The casino business is an operation based on a "something for nothing" proposal - it establishes a mindset that is negative and extremely short-term. Players visit the community/casino looking to bring little and leave with more than they arrived with. The workforce becomes trained to conduct carnival like tricks to obtain money from those who can least afford it. While this all looks attractive and might settle some short term debts, there are larger systemic problems that need to be addressed that casinos will only worsen worsen.
Atlantic City was on the decline long before casino gambling was introduced, I think you'd have a hard time making the case that it's worse now than it was 35 years ago. The casinos there are garish, but effective and powerful zoning boards (like the ones in most MA municipalities) should be able to keep that in check.
i don't want to ever live near a casino. i have no interest in going to one. i don't understand how gambling is fun.
i have been to one -- what i see is a lot of drunk people. drunk people who get in their cars after participating in an activity that creates a lot of people with destructive addiction problems.
there is talk of building one in my general area (one town over). i don't want the drunken traffic, the overflow of crime.
there must be some other way to make state revenue without preying on the gullible "I feel lucky" despair of people who do not have money to spend. rich folks are gambling on the stock market, not slot machines.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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