Thursday, March 20, 2008
Casino bill voted down in House
The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to send the bill that would legalize casino gambling in the state to a "study committee," effectively killing the proposal for this year. The vote -- which followed yesterday's marathon hearing on the issue before a joint legislative committee on economic development -- was 108-46.
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5 comments:
So now that the Suffolk Downs casino is dead in the water...what about the Suffolk Downs Movie Studio? It would seem to be a lot more manageable from a traffic and crime perspective and would add a lot of good jobs and prestige to the area.
Studio? Don't you get it, this was all just a setup for slots at the racetracks - not casinos. They never wanted casinos. So now when they bring out slots as the compromise idea, everyone will say oh - at least its not casinos - when do we start? Same social issues, same gamblers, same impacts in the neighborhood but without the dirty "C" word (as in Casino). Of course, less jobs, less economic development, and less revenue for the state. I can't wait to see how many of the "anti-casino" people are as passionate when it comes to slots.
Casino Maybe has a point. To win the vote of one of the members of the economic development committee (making it a 10-8 negative recommendation to the full House on casinos) Speaker DiMasi had to promise to allow a bill on slots to come to the floor.
Unfortunately, I do agree with Casino Maybe that this could have been a sort of bait and switch. By the studio I am referring to the recent Eastie Times article on Lamattina's proposal to bring a major movie studio to Boston. I think it would be a much better alternative to slots or a casino. Slots would also be dangerous because they would open the door to a Middleborough indian casino by allowing Class III gambling. Slots at the state's few racetracks alone wouldn't be that big of a deal but allowing "the biggest casino in the world" as it has been billed, would not be a great thing for Mass.
First of all that studio would never come to Suffolk Downs, that is absolutely ridicolous! Sal LaMattina should do his homework and know that they are interested in building a studio in Weymouth and not here.
Second of all, the owners of Suffolk Downs laughed when they heard this. They are fighting for casino's. They are not in the field of the studio business.
Let's get our facts straight Sal and let's not throw things up in the air because it Only has a good sound bite!
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