New Hampshire: "It's going to suck all the business out of Manchester"

"It's Going To Suck All the Business Out Of Manchester"


So said Manchester businessman Steve Talarico to the Union Leader in joining several leading Manchester businessmen, who want a casino in Manchester but object to the Senate's lobbyist-written, earmark-studded SB489 casino bill.



And here's what Marie from Hookset said about the rotting mess SB489 has become:

Good God now this is getting ridiculous, like vultures circling a gut wagon. OK, if Manchester's gonna get in on the action then we residents of Hooksett want a piece of this too ...Comon give us the slots, we can put a few machines in the new Ocean State Job Lots, maybe a few in Shaws and Kmart too. Yeah and the now empty Auto Wholesale lot and showroom would make a nice casino.



Maybe the fog is starting to lift on this train wreck casino bill.



SB489 would award no-bid slot casino monopolies to the owners of three race tracks and one golf course who have hired batteries of lobbyists and public opinion manipulators. They have apparently succeeded in tricking the majority of Manchester House members into believing that SB489 would somehow help their city.



Not only will the 5 or 6 casinos proposed under SB489 suck business out of Manchester, they would saturate New Hampshire with slot machines and suck hundreds of millions out of the existing New Hampshire economy.



Using casino business consultants' own numbers, the proposed casinos would drain $800 million in gambler losses from the New Hampshire and Massachusetts border economies. Using mid-range estimates of casino business cannibalization (substitution) effects of 50 percent ...



Existing New Hampshire businesses will suffer losses of $400 million per year.



Maybe the Manchester delegation ought to stop drinking from the casino lobbyists' punch bowl and start listening to Manchester business leaders: "It's going to suck all the business out of Manchester".



Even better, maybe New Hampshire is discovering that we don't want Washington-style earmarks in our legislation and special-interests circling like vultures in our statehouse. Maybe we want our legislators to think rationally and to find a budget solution that will not hurt the New Hampshire economy and corrupt New Hampshire politics.

Demand that they vote NO on both business-killing slot casino bills, SB489 and SB490.


Reasons we oppose SB489, saturating the state with 5 or 6 slot casinos.
Reasons we oppose SB490, legalizing 3 "historic racing" slot casinos.

23 Reasons we oppose any type of slot casino anywhere in our state.