Announcements should be made next month
New York’s casino siting board is gearing up to award as many as four Class III gaming licenses in the Empire State. As decision time nears, public hearings continue on the proposals. Each developer promises economic development, thousands of new jobs, and potential millions in revenues for chosen communities in three regions: the Catskills/Hudson Valley area, the Albany area and the Southern Tier/Finger Lakes.
The board’s choices will be made known sometime in October, and then must be approved by the state Gaming Commission. Final licenses should be in place by the end of the year.
Public support and opposition both are plentiful, and citizens are making their feelings known at a series of hearings. In one case, 340 residents of Schoharie County marched into a meeting room wearing identical gold T shirts in support of a gaming hall and resort at Howe Caverns, reported WNYT News.
“We have no doubt Schoharie wants a casino,” said Law.
Another contingent turned out in teal to show their support for the proposed Rivers Casino in Schenectady.
At a public meeting on the Rivers Casino at Mohawk more than 85 percent of the comments were positive. The lowest turnout, WNYT reported, came for the Hard Rock Casino project in Rensselaer. Only 13 people spoke, but 11 of them favored the development.
According to the Mid-Hudson News, the majority of residents in Orange, Ulster, and Sullivan counties would welcome a casino.
But a group that’s fighting the Sterling Forest casino in Tuxedo also came out in force, wearing yellow T-shirts to show their solidarity. “Our position all along has been that Sterling State Park is the wrong location for a massive casino the size of a small city,” said Rodger Freidman, co-chairman of the opposition group.
Another casino critic, Stephen Shafer of the Coalition Against Gambling New York, said reports on gaming “ignore the socioeconomic impact of pathological and problem gambling, such as lower productivity at work, administration of the justice system, abused dollars and social services.”
Even out-of-staters have risen up to officially fight New York casinos. According to NorthernJersey.com, the New Jersey senators unanimously passed a resolution urging New York to reject the $1.5 billion Sterling Forest casino bid. The resolution, sponsored by state Senator Paul Sarlo, says the proposed Tuxedo casino “would impart an incalculable environmental footprint on this preserved area, threatening New Jersey’s drinking water, and bringing substantial traffic and pollution into the area.
“We understand that it’s up to New York to determine where they build casinos, but all we’re saying is, ‘Find an alternate location to this one that won’t harm our drinking supply,” Sarlo said.
That drew a wry response from Michael Levoff of Genting Americas, which is behind the Tuxedo project. “We aren’t shocked that politicians in a state struggling to save its very existence in the gaming space would object to a destination resort that would heavily compete with Atlantic City and future North Jersey casinos,” Levoff said. “We’re confident that the New York State Gaming Commission will see past this piece of political theater and choose the applicant that can deliver the greatest jobs and economic impact for our own state—not our neighbors to the south.”
Incidentally, according to Capital New York, real estate developer Jeff Gural, owner of Tioga Downs racino in Vernon and one of the 16 bidders, has contributed handsomely to Sarlo, more than $15,000 since 2011. Asked about the New Jersey resolution, Gural said, “I have no idea what it’s about.”
Speaking of Genting, the Malaysian Star notes that the company’s ruling Lim family has interests in three New York casino bids, including Sterling Resorts; Resorts World Hudson Valley; and Empire Resorts’ Montreign proposal, located in the Catskills and considered a frontrunner. Empire is 61.47 percent owned by Kien Huat Realty, the biggest shareholder in Genting Malaysia and Genting Berhad.
Casino advocates in the Catskills say they are most deserving, and have waited the longest, for the kind of shot in the arm a casino (or two) could bring. Supporters have been trying to bring in casino development for more than 40 years to replace the tourism that flourished during the Borscht Belt era, reported the Wall Street Journal.
“We’ve waited too long,” said 76-year-old Thompson resident Darryl Kaplan. “Please be just. Give us what we’ve been waiting for for 40 years.”
“You probably know the casino carrot has been dangled in front of us for over 40 years,” said Sullivan County resident Tom Wasserman. “We want them, we need them and we deserve them.”
But Orange County residents say their communities can make the most money because they’re closer to Manhattan. “You can build the best casino in the whole wide world,” said Woodbury resident Colleen Pearce. “If it’s in the wrong spot and hard to get to, they won’t come. It’s not ‘Field of Dreams.’”
According to the Journal, the Gaming Facility Location Board will base 70 percent of its determination on how much economic activity a project will generate, 20 percent on its local impact and 10 percent on its workforce-development plan.
Interestingly, board leader Kevin Law has suggested that regulators may choose to err on the side of discretion, and despite the clamor, not award all four licenses. “The decision could be made to do less than four,” Law recently told Gannett News.
Anti-casino activist Shafer would be fine with that. “The Upstate Gaming Act authorized up to four casinos in upstate, it did not mandate them. No proposed casino deserves a license,” he said.
But the most creative opposition to a single casino may come from Unite HERE, the union that is campaigning against the Schenectady casino proposed by Rush Street Gaming. The union sent postcards to 15,000 homes in the Capital Region and in Orange County, a union activist told the Albany Times-Union.
The postcard says “There’s Nothing Cute About Slots Games for Kids,” and invites recipients to register their protests with Mark Gearan, chairman of the New York Gaming Commission. A Unite HERE spokesman said Rush Street’s venture in social casino games is aimed at enticing children to gamble.
The union also has been trying to organize workers at nonunion casinos. In New York, all gaming license bidders have agreed to allow any casino to be open for unionization under “labor peace” arrangements, the Times-Union reported. Those agreements were required by the state to qualify for a license.
