Des Plaines casino in the Telegram this morning

Tom Caywood has an article in today’s Telegram [$] about the casino Rush Street Gaming has in Des Plaines.  It’s well worth reading.  Of interest to Worcester residents:

The population of Des Plaines is about 58,000. It’s a mostly middle class place. People there had all the same concerns about gambling likely to come up here. Would a casino attract traffic gridlock or crime? Would gambling suck money away from local businesses? Would problem gambling hurt families in the community?

Des Plaines resident James Blue, for one, thinks the answer to all those questions has turned out to be yes since Rivers Casino opened in July 2011.

“There were lots of promises made by the casino, which have only been partially kept. We were promised a flood of new business to the community. That has not turned out to be the case,” Mr. Blue said. “We were concerned, from other casinos, that there was going to have to be a lot of police and paramedic assistance provided there and, sure enough, that has been true.”

I’d also encourage the news media (and others) to look at other investments and companies of Neil Bluhm — outside of Rush Street Gaming.  Bluhm and other Rush Street representatives were on Jordan Levy the other day.  One of the questions Levy asked was whether they were in the business of flipping casinos.

Now, first of all, Rush Street has not been in business that long — they’ve opened four casinos since 2008.  Casinos are most profitable in their first few years, so Rush Street doesn’t have the kind of track record to see whether or not they would hold a casino or slots parlor for decades.

But it’s worth noting that just four years after Neil Bluhm and Greg Carlin (CEO of Rush Street) built Riverwalk Casino and Hotel in Vicksburg, MS, they sold it to another company.

Perhaps in their world, that’s not considered flipping.  Certainly it’s worth bearing in mind when there’s a 75-year slots parlor agreement at stake.

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The slots parlor was also a topic for discussion on Rosen’s Roundtable.  Councilor Konnie Lukes said the following about her meeting with the Rush Street executives:

They do not look slick. They do not look threatening. They don’t look evil. They are going to be disarmingly convincing. Being humble and charming doesn’t get you $2 billion in assets. So they know what they’re doing, they have studied the area, they have everything down to a formula.

The first thing they told me was that the hotel was going to be in CitySquare. It’s not going to be in Kelley Square. And a lot of the neighbors down in Kelley Square think they’re getting a first class hotel, and that’s what’s going to rejuvenate the neighborhood. My feeling is that the slots parlor is going to suck the life right out of the neighborhood, and any attempts of the Canal District to revive are going to be useless.

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There will be a Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees on Public Safety and Economic Development to discuss the slots parlor host agreement on Monday, April 8, at 6:30pm, at the Hibernian Cultural Center on Temple Street.

In anticipation of that meeting, the City Council agenda for Tuesday has a number of items coming in from Councilors regarding the proposed slots parlor (and other related topics):

• Request the City Council’s Standing Committees on Economic Development and Public Safety hold a joint committee meeting for public hearings concerning the “host-community agreement” relative to the proposed potential slots parlor, being authorized by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and being pursued by Mass Gaming and Entertainment, LLC, for the purpose of giving Worcester residents an opportunity to give input as to what the public wants to be included within the “host-community agreement” and further, request the City Manager assist by providing appropriate department resources, such as legal, economic, law enforcement and public works , for such hearings and invite any other stakeholders the City Manager deems appropriate. (Rushton, O’Brien, Economou, Toomey, Rivera, Petty)
• If the City Council Standing Committee on Economic Development holds hearings concerning the siting of proposed potential slot parlors, that the Committee allow testimony in opposition to the siting of a slots parlor in Worcester. (Lukes)
• Request City Manager request the City Solicitor to provide a legal opinion regarding Mass General Laws Chapter 23K sec 61 as to whether the distribution of monies from the Community Mitigation Fund established pursuant to Mass General Laws are available not only to the host community but also to the surrounding communities. (Lukes)
• Request City Manager request the Police Chief to provide City Council with a report prior to the April 8, 2013 Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees on Public Safety and Economic Development with his opinion of the potential crime impact that a slots parlor could generate and suggest efforts that we might consider in advance to mitigate those impacts. (Russell, Economou, Rivera, Rushton)
• Request City Manager request the Director of Public Health to provide City Council with a report prior to the April 8, 2013 Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees on Public Safety and Economic Development with his opinion of the potential impact to public health of the community that a slots parlor could generate and suggest efforts that we might consider in advance to mitigate those impacts. (Russell, Economou, Rivera, Rushton)
• Request City Manager request the Commissioner of the Department of Public Works and Parks to provide City Council prior to the April 8, 2013 Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees on Public Safety and Economic Development his opinion of the potential traffic flow and infrastructure impacts of a proposed slots parlor in the Kelley Square environs and suggest efforts that we might consider in advance to mitigate those impacts. (Russell, Economou, Rivera, Rushton)
• Request City Manager report on the occupancy rates, income and number of hotel rooms in Worcester hotels for the past four years. (Lukes)
• Request City Manager report on the number of hotel rooms in Worcester under or pending construction. (Lukes)

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Please let me know on the blog or the Facebook page if you have any questions about the process (or anything else).  I’ve got lots of questions, too, and I hope to be posting more about this in the near future.