In response to the mythological answer provided by Robert Carroll, this was forwarded to Chairman Crosby (there's more information contained in this forum, but this disproves the response):
"Trust, but verify" also applies to
what you choose to
accept from the panelists who addressed the Gambling
Commission yesterday.
Robert Carroll dismissed the crime that has infested
Atlantic City, along with
the poverty that has grown.
This is a Federal Reserve study - no vested interest -
Poverty in Atlantic City
Poverty in Atlantic City
AC's problems are complex, caused by many factors
beyond corruption and mismanagement, reinforced by
racism.
There's a great book - "Board of Dreams" by Bryant
Simon.
Of Atlantic City --
The police union erected a billboard saying the resort was not
safe.
From: Crime in Atlantic
City
But the McKinsey report refers to it as fact, citing
statistics that show the city’s violent crime rate in 2009
far exceeded the national average and trumps other
cities such as Trenton and Biloxi, Miss, according to federal statisitics.
Additional information:
Atlantic City, which has a year-round population of nearly 40,000 and
all the crime problems associated with urban areas, is not counted as a resort
municipality on the UCR. There were 671 violent crimes there in 2008, including
11 homicides.
Last May, Ray Kot, a shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal, was shot to death inside the casino by a customer. In January 2009, an elderly man was beaten and robbed in the Taj's parking garage and an elderly couple was robbed and beaten at Caesars a month later.
Last May, Ray Kot, a shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal, was shot to death inside the casino by a customer. In January 2009, an elderly man was beaten and robbed in the Taj's parking garage and an elderly couple was robbed and beaten at Caesars a month later.
From Texas
Republicans Got It Right About
Slots!
Skyrocketing Crime
Sept. 2004 research showed casinos hiked violent crime 13%.
Everywhere video slot machines have been legalized, crime rates have skyrocketed, including aggravated assault, rape, robbery, larceny, burglary, auto theft, embezzlement, and fraud.
1st 3 years of gambling in Atlantic City, New Jersey went from 50th in nation in per capita crime to 1st in the nation.
From Ohio Gambling Opposition
In Atlantic City, 25% of small businesses closed 3 years after casinos opened. Prior to casinos, the unemployment rate in Atlantic City was 30% higher than the rest of the state. 10 years later, it is 50% higher than the rest of the state.
Do Casinos Cause Crime?
In the midst of an economic crisis, the U.S. gambling industry continues to grow—and so does the debate over its connection to crime.
It’s a familiar, and sad, story: a 41-year-old housekeeper in Bangor, Maine, forged $40,000 in checks belonging to elderly people in the assisted-living home where she worked, then gambled it away at Hollywood Slots, a cavernous 1,000-slot-machine establishment that dominates one side of Bangor, an old, poor, church-spired New England town.
She pleaded guilty, blaming an addiction to gambling, and in 2008 received a three-year prison term.
Skyrocketing Crime
Sept. 2004 research showed casinos hiked violent crime 13%.
Everywhere video slot machines have been legalized, crime rates have skyrocketed, including aggravated assault, rape, robbery, larceny, burglary, auto theft, embezzlement, and fraud.
1st 3 years of gambling in Atlantic City, New Jersey went from 50th in nation in per capita crime to 1st in the nation.
From Ohio Gambling Opposition
In Atlantic City, 25% of small businesses closed 3 years after casinos opened. Prior to casinos, the unemployment rate in Atlantic City was 30% higher than the rest of the state. 10 years later, it is 50% higher than the rest of the state.
Do Casinos Cause Crime?
In the midst of an economic crisis, the U.S. gambling industry continues to grow—and so does the debate over its connection to crime.
It’s a familiar, and sad, story: a 41-year-old housekeeper in Bangor, Maine, forged $40,000 in checks belonging to elderly people in the assisted-living home where she worked, then gambled it away at Hollywood Slots, a cavernous 1,000-slot-machine establishment that dominates one side of Bangor, an old, poor, church-spired New England town.
She pleaded guilty, blaming an addiction to gambling, and in 2008 received a three-year prison term.
...a 1997 study found that Atlantic County, the only county in New
Jersey where casino gambling is legal, had a personal bankruptcy rate 71 percent higher than the rest
of the state.
Eight years after Resorts opened, television reporter Bill Moyers
brought a camera crew to Atlantic City....
Crime, Moyers discovered, had risen 80 percent since Resorts opened. A third of the city's homes had been destroyed, but the casino gold rush had made land so expensive that most buildings couldn't be replaced. One specualtion story astonished him. In 1985, the city needed a new high school, but it couldn't afford a building big enough in town, so local leaders filled in marshland a few miles from the Boardwalk and put a new school there. Land prices weren't the only striking statistics. More than 200 restaurants, Moyers learned, had gone out of business since 1978. Before the casinos, the kitchen at Curt Kugel's Luigi's restaurant had cranked out as many as 1,000 dinners a night when the Miss America Pageant or the AFL-CIO convention came to town. After Resorts opened, Kugel's revenues fell by half. By the time Moyers spoke with him in 1986, his restaurant had been turned into a parking lot.
Taken from: Bill Moyers, "Big Gamble in Atlantic City," CBS New Special Report, July 28, 1986, Heston Room, ACFPL.
Crime, Moyers discovered, had risen 80 percent since Resorts opened. A third of the city's homes had been destroyed, but the casino gold rush had made land so expensive that most buildings couldn't be replaced. One specualtion story astonished him. In 1985, the city needed a new high school, but it couldn't afford a building big enough in town, so local leaders filled in marshland a few miles from the Boardwalk and put a new school there. Land prices weren't the only striking statistics. More than 200 restaurants, Moyers learned, had gone out of business since 1978. Before the casinos, the kitchen at Curt Kugel's Luigi's restaurant had cranked out as many as 1,000 dinners a night when the Miss America Pageant or the AFL-CIO convention came to town. After Resorts opened, Kugel's revenues fell by half. By the time Moyers spoke with him in 1986, his restaurant had been turned into a parking lot.
Taken from: Bill Moyers, "Big Gamble in Atlantic City," CBS New Special Report, July 28, 1986, Heston Room, ACFPL.
"Boardwalk of Dreams, Atlantic
City and the Fate of Urban American," by Bryant Simon, pages
194-195.
Low wages:
Homelessness:
Atlantic City has an army of
homeless beggars who hit the night boardwalk. Crime is rampant in Atlantic City.
The police union erected a billboard saying the resort was not safe. As for the
glitter and the fun, they are locked in the mammoth self enclosed casinos. They
are too often viewed as fortresses in a dangerous city, hope that is surrounded
by despair. The city's reputation can be summed up two words: greed and sleaze.
This heavy materialism and pervasive plight makes Atlantic City a tough setting
for a film and musical festival.
Poverty:
He will leave behind a city that has lost half its population over the
last 50 years. Where 1 in 5 people live below the poverty level. Where economic
development, to say the least, is a struggle.
When the Seneca Niagara Casino opened on New Year’s Eve 2002, it was
surrounded by neighborhoods of rotting and dilapidated housing and vacant
storefronts lined nearby Niagara Street.
Eight years later, the view hasn’t really changed.
“It’s pretty much what you could have predicted,” said Bryant Simon, director of the American Studies Program in the Department of History at Temple University, and an expert on casinos and urban renewal. “Since the 1970s, we’ve always wanted our urban renewal to be quick fixes.”
Simon said that has led state and local governments to push for the construction of all types of mega-projects like theme parks, aquariums, sports stadiums and, of course, casinos. But Simon, who has written a book on the economic development experiences of Atlantic City, said there are no silver bullets when it comes to revitalizing a blighted city.
“(Niagara Falls) could have looked at Atlantic City, they could have looked at Detroit,” Simon said. “(Casinos) basically destroyed local business in Atlantic City.”
Eight years later, the view hasn’t really changed.
“It’s pretty much what you could have predicted,” said Bryant Simon, director of the American Studies Program in the Department of History at Temple University, and an expert on casinos and urban renewal. “Since the 1970s, we’ve always wanted our urban renewal to be quick fixes.”
Simon said that has led state and local governments to push for the construction of all types of mega-projects like theme parks, aquariums, sports stadiums and, of course, casinos. But Simon, who has written a book on the economic development experiences of Atlantic City, said there are no silver bullets when it comes to revitalizing a blighted city.
“(Niagara Falls) could have looked at Atlantic City, they could have looked at Detroit,” Simon said. “(Casinos) basically destroyed local business in Atlantic City.”
Atlantic City: crime amidst excess
Atlantic
City public safety director seeks to fix police headquarters lacking up-to-date
crime equipment
ATLANTIC CITY — Christine Petersen knows firsthand what Gov. Chris Christie was talking about when he said Atlantic City had become a crime-ridden mess when announcing a proposed state takeover of its tourist and casino districts this summer.
Petersen, who took over as the city’s public safety director in March, sees the glitz and glamour of the seaside resort juxtaposed against its dilapidation and despair: High-rise hotels and burned-out row houses, women in ball gowns and men in cardboard boxes.
On Atlantic Avenue, just two blocks from the ocean, Petersen — a cop, detective and lawyer — walked into police headquarters and took a step back in time.
"No computers," she said. "We have no computers."
She found a city where the squad cars did not have terminals on board. The department didn’t have automated dispatch and incident-recording systems. Cops couldn’t track where crimes were occurring so patrols couldn’t be adjusted the way they are in New York, Newark and Jersey City, where she rose to become a detective commander after working nearly three decades in the city’s police department. Officers on the road were still checking old-fashioned hard copies of "hot sheets" to see if cars they were pulling over had been stolen.
ATLANTIC CITY — Christine Petersen knows firsthand what Gov. Chris Christie was talking about when he said Atlantic City had become a crime-ridden mess when announcing a proposed state takeover of its tourist and casino districts this summer.
Petersen, who took over as the city’s public safety director in March, sees the glitz and glamour of the seaside resort juxtaposed against its dilapidation and despair: High-rise hotels and burned-out row houses, women in ball gowns and men in cardboard boxes.
On Atlantic Avenue, just two blocks from the ocean, Petersen — a cop, detective and lawyer — walked into police headquarters and took a step back in time.
"No computers," she said. "We have no computers."
She found a city where the squad cars did not have terminals on board. The department didn’t have automated dispatch and incident-recording systems. Cops couldn’t track where crimes were occurring so patrols couldn’t be adjusted the way they are in New York, Newark and Jersey City, where she rose to become a detective commander after working nearly three decades in the city’s police department. Officers on the road were still checking old-fashioned hard copies of "hot sheets" to see if cars they were pulling over had been stolen.
...found the average annual salary of a racino employee is
less than $14,000. This was near minimum wage at the
time of the study.
In Connecticut:
Low wage jobs have forced 'hot bedding.'
Both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have recruited low wage workers from overseas because they're unable to fill the jobs locally.
The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies in its January update report (Table 29) discloses that the weighted average wage for 75 percent of the jobs at a typical U.S. casino is
Low wage jobs have forced 'hot bedding.'
Both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have recruited low wage workers from overseas because they're unable to fill the jobs locally.
The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies in its January update report (Table 29) discloses that the weighted average wage for 75 percent of the jobs at a typical U.S. casino is
$9.60 per hour (not
including tips, 2008
data).
Commissioner McHugh commented about the need for public
education.
I would respectfully suggest that it seems to be the Commission that
requires education rather than merely accepting Industry Propaganda.
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