It is quite sad that the Toronto Star editorial writers seem to have so little understanding of the vagaries and ups and downs of the market place. Maybe being part of a vast, monolithic organization as Torstar causes them to be somewhat immune to such concerns. In one of their many anti-casino diatribes, they appeared to be chortling over the misfortunes of a multi-billion dollar resort casino in Atlantic City.
Yet, maybe there is a message in this. The problem with Revel, the Atlantic City casino resort, is that it denied everything. It was much too ritzy to survive in that tacky-town market. It ignored the day-trippers from New York who built that city. It focussed on an ocean that everyone turned their back on. It was a marketing experiment by people who must have flunked Marketing 101. And they spent billions during the second worst time in American economic history.
What Paul Godfrey and friends have against calling a casino a casino, we will never know. We can tell you truthfully that nobody visits Atlantic City to see the ocean, be pampered in luxury hotels and enjoy fine cuisine. They come to gamble, dammit.
So what does that mean in Toronto? Why are we talking resort hotels on the Exhibition grounds? Why would anyone want to overcrowd the Convention Centre, basket ball/hockey palace and baseball park area with more hotel rooms and a casino? The truth is that Toronto is already a destination. It has lots of great hotels, wonderful restaurants representing the world of cuisine, the best of theatres, sports, parks and entertainments. All it needs is a few casinos to spice things up and be a full service city.
If you pushed a bit, Woodbine Entertainment could have table games in place in less than a month. It already has a casino in place, if it would just get rid of some of those slots. There are also a bunch of questionable banquet halls around the city where casinos could spring up like magic.
Be honest people. Toronto will never be Las Vegas North. You really do not want it to be. You want Toronto to be the open, friendly, welcoming city that accepts people, it always has been. You do not want to force your standards on others. You believe in live and let live. And if people want to gamble—which is quite legal—you want it to be in friendly, well managed, properly regulated premises. That should be our only concern.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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