I have many concerns about a recent article titled “No Vote No Casino,” quoting Gordon Petch, a Toronto lawyer who is leading an appeal against the KED on behalf of a vocal minority group opposed to this development.
Of present interest, he is presently the lawyer for the landowner of the present site of the Sudbury Casino. This landowner stands to lose a lot of money when the casino is moved to the new Kingsway location.
Although we already have a casino in Chelmsford, he states city council did not consider the social economic effect of gambling. I’m sure our council knows there exists problem gambling when they voted 10 to two for Sudbury accepting a new casino.
Local citizens already spend thousands of dollars when they go to the local corner store and purchase lottery tickets and gaming cards. You can pick up your smart phone and gamble thousands of dollars with online gambling. Many others travel to casinos, the Sault, Rama or Niagara Falls to spend their money. How much of this money spent stays in Sudbury? If you chose zero, you got the right answer. If you don’t like casinos, just don’t go.
In Ontario, Gateway is expanding nine locations and building five new casinos in Kenora, North Bay, London, Chatham and Sudbury.
City councils in all of these locations welcomed the new development and not one of them required a referendum.
Even though we already have a casino, this Toronto lawyer must feel our elected city councillors are incompetent and we should be the only city requiring a referendum. He also quotes the Rowan Urban Metric report financed by the downtown supporters as to the long-term effect on downtown Sudbury.
The downtown has may new exciting projects: Place des Arts, Conference centre library/Art centre. There is only so much room for all of these venues and there is presently inadequate parking for these venues, much less adding an arena and casino.
Not being from Sudbury, Petch doesn’t understand that since amalgamation there is much more to the Regional Municipality of Sudbury than just downtown Sudbury.
The lawyer also states the arena should have been financed at no cost to the city. Please show me one city in North America that got a free arena.
I contacted Gateway Casinos and we were told that site preparation costs are to be shared three ways between the developer, Gateway and the city. The financing of construction of a hotel and the casino is 100 per cent financed by Gateway Casinos and the private developer of the hotel.
I was told $60 million Gateway construction costs will be locally sourced for materials and workers.
I feel the choosing of a Toronto lawyer shows how much interest this minority anti-development group has in keeping their money in Sudbury. We have many excellent local law firms that would have appreciated their business, but they chose to spend their locally raised money in southern Ontario.
I have been a citizen of Sudbury all my life and feel that this KED development will help us catch up to other forward-thinking communities. Most people I talk to have accepted council’s decisions and would like to see this development started ASAP and are not happy that it is being held up by appeals from minority self-interest group.
In the upcoming municipal election, I urge citizens to vote for progressive candidates who have a vision to lead our community out of the doom and gloom, dark age attitudes that some negative minorities would like us to stay.
Gary Polack
Sudbury