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Local businessman resumes campaign to stop Sudbury casino

'I'm not against gambling, I'm against theft,' Tom Fortin says
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As the debate rages ahead of tomorrow evening's city council meeting on the location of an arena/events centre, a Sudbury businessman is cranking up his campaign against building a casino in the city. (File)

As the debate rages ahead of tomorrow evening's city council meeting on the location of an arena/events centre, a Sudbury businessman is cranking up his campaign against building a casino in the city.

As he did when the province first announced the plan four years ago, Tom Fortin says he wants to let people know that casinos are really a money drain on communities.

"People don't seem to understand the difference between spending $20 at Home Hardware to buy something for your house and spending $20 in a casino," Fortin said. "When you spend money in a hardware store, you buy things we need.

"You spend money in a casino, you're defining who you are as a community. The casino is going to, basically, extract $60 million to $100 million from our entertainment budget in Sudbury."

He's lined up the support of the MacIsaac family, who operate the current slots facility in Chelmsford, and developer Dalron, who was involved in a proposal to build the arena in the South End.

"These are two of the developers that are in the running for a casino," Fortin said. "They have both come out now and said, yeah, a casino is a bad idea."

While he's not saying which location he supports for the arena/events centre, Fortin did point out that Gateway Casinos want to build on businessman Dario Zulich's Kingsway site.

"So basically, a vote for an arena on The Kingsway really is a vote for a casino on The Kingsway," he said. "There's a lot of misleading conceptions about casinos out there. I think it's purely a matter of education. It's going to be a long road to fight a casino in this town."

Fortin said he's not against gambling, and would have no problem with local raffles or charity bingos. But, he says, the way casinos are structured is to vacuum the pockets of residents of a town, including seniors.

"So I'm not against gambling, I'm against theft. That's what the casinos are about,” Fortin said. "How can we possibly do that?”

Rather than sucking wealth out of Sudbury, he said we need to focus on creating wealth, as he tries to do with the foundation he runs that helps young people start businesses.

"I'm about creating wealth,” Fortin said. “Why am I attacking a casino? Because I see casinos as a vehicle to drain the wealth from a community.

"If the slots were to close, yes, it would be a loss of $8 million in wages, but I see it as an opportunity for us. I really think we've failed seniors in the community. What do we provide for them? Slot machines to sit in front of.”

Fortin makes it clear that he likes Zulich and his family and that they have done a lot of good things for the community. But he thinks they're wrong to support a casino.

"The Zulich family is a great family — they've done a lot for this town, I admire them,” he said. “But I really believe they're shooting themselves in the foot by pushing a casino.

"I'm not normally an advocate. I just want to go to my cabin, go fishing, go in the canoe and live my life. But when I look at the threat to this great city we have right now, I can't sit down."

For more information, go to www.ontrak.net/casino.


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