Philly Casino Watch

Governor Ed Rendell said the following about the current council, “City Council with no guts that can be extorted by community groups.”

This is big news, and shows how the powers in Harrisburg are flexing their muscles in result of Mayor Nutter pulling the “riparian lands” license for the Sugar House Casino. Read about it in our post, Nutter Does Philly Right.

The Casino-Free Philadelphia Organization feels strongly about the recent developments, “Extorted by community groups? Give us break. We call it democracy, Rendell. It is not gutless to take leadership from the people. It does take guts to stand up to casino money. Rendell has his priorities screwed up.”

Northern Liberties resident Debbie King expressed her thoughts, “Who is the governor representing? Does he represent the people of Philadelphia or does he represent the special interests? If he represented the people, he would be looking at new locations for these casinos away from our neighborhoods.”

You can sign this petition in hopes of having Gov. Rendell retract his statements.

Sources:
casinofreephila.org
philly.metro.us

In the post “Thank you Mayor Street” by Jamie, he explains the situation in which previous Philadelphia Mayor Street passed the “riparian lands” license to begin building the Sugar House Casino. Well, it turns out that we are not the only ones who thought that it was the wrong move; Mayor Nutter is on our side (so it seems as of now)!

Mayor Nutter asked Commerce Director Bumb to revoke the license because it had been “issued in error” and was “unnecessarily rushed.” Nutter said the issue was “not just about money” and continued, “This is about proper process and procedure and how we conduct ourselves here in the city.”

Of course this has the Sugar House CEO Greg Carlin flipping out, “We have been advised by our legal team that the City’s action to rescind our submerged lands license is contrary to law given the pending litigation surrounding that license.”

Bumb countering Mr. Carlin’s comments states, “The city had not reviewed submerged lands for 20 years […] It was a little-known process involved here, and that probably should have caused us to be more cautious […] We hurried it more in a way that was helpful to the project.” But now he sees there are other factors that should not have been ignored, such as the community.

This is a huge victory for the city of Philadelphia, but it is only one small step in the right direction. It is an uphill battle that seems can never be won…or can it?

Check out this news clip!

Sources:
planphilly.com
philly.com

Is number one good? Being in first place is good, right? Well, Mohegan Sun’s PA slot parlor should know. They ranked number one in a list of East Coast slots for revenue last year. After only one year and they’ve already passed Atlantic City’s slot revenue on a per machine basis. Mohegan Sun currently operates 1,203 slot machines - each of which are pulling in just over $400 a day. Furthermore, Philadelphia Park, PA ranked 3rd, while Meadows Racetrack and Casino and Harrah’s Chester Casino and Racetrack rounded out the top five respectively. Not bad for their first year!

So what does that translate into as a whole for the Pennsylvania Gaming industry? Well, according to the PGCB pulled in $1.04 billion last year, resulting in $572 million in taxes that will go towards property tax relief for PA’s citizens. Not exactly insignificant. Opponents in Philly are gonna be hard pressed to change the state’s course with results like that.

Well, I guess it’s true what they say: “Better later than never.” On his final day in office (Friday, January 4, 2008) Mayor Street issued permits allowing Sugarhouse Casino to use heavy machinery for leveling and grading the building site. The state Department of Environmental Protection also issued Sugarhouse a storm-water discharge construction permit on the same day, knocking down one more obstacle in Sugarhouse’s path. Newly appointed Mayor Nutter will check to make sure the permits were issued properly. The Sugarhouse train steams ahead!

-Jamie