Local leaders in Brooklyn, New York’s Coney Island neighborhood have roundly rejected the idea of a casino in the iconic beach community. Community Board 13, a commission of local leaders appointed by Brooklyn borough and council members, easily passed a resolution rejecting the casino plan, by a vote of 23-8.
After the online vote, CB 13 Chairwoman Lucy Mujica Diaz told the New York Post the situation is analogous to Atlantic City, where casinos were offered as a solution to help an economically distressed neighborhood.
“We don’t want what Atlantic City has,” Diaz said, according to the Post. “We’re already drowning in traffic half the year. Now you want to bring more traffic in. We don’t want it.”
“I completely agree with the overwhelming opposition from the community in Coney Island,” added Brooklyn Councilman Ari Kagan, who represents Coney Island. “I hear this not just in Coney Island but all over southern Brooklyn… The overwhelming majority of people I talk to are against the casino.”
The casino project proposed by Thor Equities, dubbed “The Coney,” would create a casino and entertainment complex that Thor founder and Coney Island native Joe Sitt has said would blend into the aesthetics of the community’s boardwalk and draw people to the beach year-round. Thor’s partners in the project are Saratoga Casino Holdings, the Chickasaw Nation, and Legends, the sports and entertainment company owned by the New York Yankees.
The board’s resolution noted that Coney Island already has a high crime rate, and said the casino would “destroy our quality of life and destroy families.
“Our community cannot endure the substantial burden and problems that this venue will generate,” the resolution said. “We request that our local elected officials collaborate with us to address our existing problems, not drown us with additional problems. Community Board 13 is listening to our community and recommends opposing a casino development in our district and urges our elected officials to inform the Gaming Commission the decision of the community they represent.”
Proponents of the casino plan say there’s substantial support for the project, evidenced by more than 3,300 signatures from local residents on a support petition. Robert Cornegy, a consultant to the casino consortium who helped collect those signatures, told the Post the resolution was unfairly stacked against the project.
“I do believe that the resolution was unfair to the project by wording it that way and steering the vote that way. I haven’t seen a resolution worded that way before,” said Cornegy, a former Brooklyn councilman.
