Casino news source: Timed Leader - http://www.timesleader.com
Philly residents will get to vote on casino locations
City Council overrides mayor’s veto of referendum measure to put issue on ballot.
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — City residents will get to vote on a referendum that seeks to limit where casinos can be built after City Council voted Thursday to override a mayoral veto.
The ballot question will ask voters whether the city charter should be amended to ban the building of casinos within 1,500 feet of homes, churches and schools.
Mayor John Street, as promised, vetoed a bill to place the referendum on the May 15 primary election ballot, but City Council unanimously approved an override. The council vote brought cheers of “thank you!” from anti-gambling activists, who waved colorful placards in council chambers.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has vowed to challenge the referendum in court, insisting that it alone can decide where casinos go. In December, the board awarded licenses to SugarHouse Casino and Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia to build on separate sites along the Delaware River.
The waterfront sites are critical to the approval of licenses. If the referendum is approved and survives a court challenge, the casinos will be forced to pick other sites and the licensing process would have to start anew. The new restrictions on casino development also would severely limit available sites in the densely populated city.
In a letter to council members, Street said he believes the bill enabling the referendum is illegal.
“Gaming appropriately is authorized at the state level,” he said. “Nowhere in the country do cities undertake gaming without state authorization. Pennsylvania is no different.”
He said Philadelphia stands to take in more than $100 million over the next five years from gaming host fees and increased revenue, which would go toward schools, social service programs, police and fire departments as well as other city services.
The casinos would bring 7,000 to 12,000 new permanent jobs plus 1,000 construction jobs during the first phase of development, Street said.
Annual wages are expected to exceed $47 million once Phase I is completed and should increase with future development. The second and third phase of construction will include hotels, shopping malls and condominiums.
Street also warned that if the charter change referendum is enacted, the state could take away the city’s authority over development of the casino sites.
Street contended that thousands of Philadelphia residents already had weighed in on the issue since he created the Philadelphia Gaming Advisory Task Force in January 2005.
Opponents of the two waterfront casinos had said residents weren’t given adequate opportunity to respond.
SugarHouse plans to build a slots casino just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge, in the Fishtown neighborhood, while Foxwoods has chosen a site less than two miles away in South Philadelphia.
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which runs the huge Foxwoods Resort Casino on its Connecticut reservation, is the biggest investor in the Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia. Neil G. Bluhm, a billionaire developer from Chicago, is the biggest investor in SugarHouse. |
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