Once you add in the recent six-story 200-room hotel, the Graton Rancheria, Northern California’s largest Indian casino, has spent billion on its resort since it opened in 2013 in Rohnert Park.
Collateral benefits to the surrounding region include to the 100 companies in the state that helped build the hotel, which job employed about 1,000. The resort itself now has 2,000 permanent employees.
The North Bay Business Journal quoted Robert Eyler, chief economist of the Marin Economic Forum as saying, “The (economic) impact depends on where the workers live, but generally they support the operations of a local business that attracts tourists and also spends on suppliers. The workers also shop at local stores, eat at local restaurants, and likely engage in some personal services purchases locally before or after work, and pay rents and mortgages. The idea is there is a boost to business incomes locally, which helps them support or hire more workers, all that generates more tax revenues.”
In addition, casino employees get free meals and workers logging in more than 20 hours a week get benefits, he said. This influenced other hospitality businesses in the area to raise their salaries and benefits.
The resort may also influence the local economy because of its efforts to attract more international business and to encourage patrons to visit tourist destinations in the North Bay area, including local wineries.
On the other hand, the city of Rohnert Park may lose tax revenues because of the casino. It will not receive transient occupancy taxes from the hotel. It will also lose property taxes on the tribal lands where the casino is situated.
In the arena of conservation and its “social mission” the tribe intends to devote a larger portion of its revenue to the care and restoration of parks and organic parks, according to Greg Sarris, tribal chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. “Watch the larger agenda,” he told the Journal.
