Chamber vows aggressive fight against casinos

Chamber vows aggressive fight against casinos
By Jeremy Wallace, Herald-Tribune
Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Florida Chamber of Commerce played a big role in killing the expansion of casino gambling in Florida in the last legislative session.

And when it inevitably comes up again next year, the president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce told a Sarasota audience last week that he will be there again to beat it back.

“Because we are on the right side of this issue,” Florida Chamber President Mark Wilson said during a speech to the Sarasota Republican Club.

Casino backers were pushing a bill to allow three mega-casinos to be built in South Florida with the promise of bringing thousands of jobs.

But Wilson said Florida is on the right path economically — creating more than 100,000 new jobs in each of the last two years — and doesn’t need the damage to the tourism economy that he says Las Vegas style casinos would surely bring.

“The issue is, we don’t need them,” Wilson said.

Everywhere casinos emerge, they suck away money from already established tourism-based economies, he said.

Some Republican Club members took issue with Wilson, saying if the chamber is for free markets they should let the casinos battle in the open market too.

But Wilson stood his ground, saying they would hurt current retailers and wreck havoc with other businesses that the chamber already represents.

“Where casinos have gone, they end up closing small businesses in that community,” Wilson said.