A great letter to the editor by Winona Moeller

A great letter to the editor by Winona Moeller:

I agree with Joe Fitzgerald’s recent column (“Casino ads don’t
show gaming agony” Boston Herald Oct. 13, 2014). ...The first week
in October I visited Ft. Lauderdale searching for Sunday services,
on a sunny, balmy, dry, 85°F day. My husband and I found a small,
family-friendly church in nearby Hollywood, six miles south of Ft.
Lauderdale. We were horrified by the blighted town. Directly
across from the church, a drab box of a building, surrounded by
chain-linked fences loomed acres of cracked asphalt, void of
parked cars. The monstrous “jai alai” casino, despite its gleaming
neon regalia, a vacant castle begging for visitors. An acre away, a
simple recreational center and empty tennis courts feigned
recreation for an absent population. Tennis courts seemed ill
placed for the homes in disrepair or abandoned; for rent/sale
properties, boarded up and abandoned businesses, enveloped
miles surrounding the casino. Scant businesses desperate for
tourists who never appeared in the three hours we were there:
antiques & collectibles, seashells, memorabilia, drive-thru food,
donut shop, boat repair shop, storage garages, etc. Occasional
indigent residents clad in worn clothing, riding old bicycles, driving
older-model, patched cars, peppered a deteriorated town.
Obviously, thousands of tourists in Ft. Lauderdale, and travelers
from Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, three miles north of
Hollywood, were not flocking south to this casino.

Let’s NOT repeat this scene in MASSACHUSETTS: REPEAL THE CASINO!
VOTE YES on #3 on Tuesday, Nov. 4th!