Casino news source: Wheeling News-Register- http://www.theintelligencer.net
Gessler: Casino Action Won’t Increase Local Crime
By JOSELYN KING
WHEELING — Wheeling Police Chief Kevin Gessler said statistics for the past decade don’t support the assertion that crime in the Friendly City will increase if table gambling is approved at Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center.
“I have no expectations there will be additional crime,” Gessler said. “We will have some factors with additional people, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There will be some increased traffic and minor accidents.”
The track has had video gambling machines since 1996.
“Over the last 10 years, the trend in crime has been down locally, and it was at its lowest point” in 2005, Gessler added. “As for incidents at the gaming center, more times than not the track is the victim — usually in cases of counterfeiting or fraud.”
FBI Crime Statistics provided by Gessler show there were 1,445 incidents of crime reported in Wheeling in1996. In 2005, there were 1,111.
The biggest decrease has come in the area of larcenies, which lessened from 883 in 1996 to 645 in 2005. The number of burglaries in 1995 was 365, down to 229 in 1996.
The statistics show that the number of assaults in Wheeling — while initially decreasing in number since 1996 — have been increasing since 2001. Gessler attributes this to changing laws that now require an officer to make arrests when responding to domestic violence reports.
Figures pertaining to murders and sexual assaults have remained steady over the past decade.
But robbery has increased in the city during the same time, up from 35 incidents in 1996 to 41 in 2005. Motor vehicle thefts have risen from 60 to 90 in the past 10 years — a trend Gessler said often is related to drug deals.
As for Wheeling Island itself, crime numbers have been on par with those for the rest of the city — showing a decrease in burglaries and larcenies and an increase in aggravated assaults and motor vehicle thefts.
“I don’t know if video lottery is a factor one way or another in crime,” Gessler said. “We had a problem with open air drug markets on Wheeling Island, but that was a community problem. We went in and attacked it. It was nothing associated with the track.
“The gaming center didn’t bring drugs to Wheeling Island. Crack was there before video lottery happened. There is no correlation between the gaming center and crime in the community.”
Gessler added that he has personally visited both Las Vegas and Atlantic City in recent months and conferred with law enforcement there about the effects of gambling on crime.
“Even in these locations, there are comments that gaming has increased the local economics,” he said. “They say the tax base has been expanding so that they now can take care of areas that were run down.
“One officer told me that before the casinos came, there were parts of Atlantic City that were so run down he didn’t take his family there.”
Gessler said neither he nor the police department are officially taking a position on the subject of table gambling; he is only providing the statistical facts.
He admitted it is also a fact that officers will benefit if table gambling comes to the track. It is expected Wheeling could get as much as an extra $250,000 annually each year from gross fund taxes on table gambling, and much of this money would be used to shore up police and fire pensions in the city.
“If I don’t have anything else in front of me, I need to be straightforward and say table gambling will benefit officers and pensions,” Gessler said. “Table gambling will have a positive influences on their pension funds.” |
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