Letter to Editor: I don’t comprehend why the casino was voted down. There was a plan to put a casino in the Meadowlands or Jersey City.
New Jersey people go to Pennsylvania and New York, where the casinos are nearby. That indicates New Jersey could be raking in that lost tax revenue and not out-of-state casinos. The casino in Philadelphia gets the gamblers instead of Atlantic City — it’s a three-hour trip, $15 in tolls round trip and cost of fuel. So why go to AC?
It’s reasonable to place a casino at the Meadowland race complex, which would be more suitable for the state to utilize it as it owns the complex. Some adjunct land may have to be bought, plus auxiliary roadway entrances built.
Yonkers has the Empire casino in New York, Monticello casino in New York. Plus they are building a $600 million casino/hotel complex a few miles away.
Pennsylvania casinos: Mohegan Sun and Mount Airy, an hour away.
A casino in North Jersey would be a big tax revenue winner We are in a tri-state hub of New York City, Jersey City, Newark, Paterson and the populous counties of Bergen, Essex, etc. Approximately 25 million people?
Some 56 million visit casinos every year and growing. Let’s look at the prosperity of what the casino does.
The economic side: Hire thousands of employees; pay tax revenues to the federal, state, counties; support communities, charity organizations.
Casinos support law enforcement, etc. It’s to the casino’s benefit. An old argument, they create crime. It’s a fallacious reason. Don’t look at Atlantic City. Democrats killed that city.
A casino will eventually come to North Jersey because people will realize it is a big money winner for taxes.
We need more revenue to help hopefully lower taxes. The ones who voted against the casino: Do you buy Lotto tickets? Why? That’s gambling.
John McDonough
Montague
From Michael Graham: The casinos we have are failing, why build more? Gambling was supposed to turn AC into a shining city on the hill – how’s that workin out for ya?
From Ann Smulewicz: Mr. Graham…A state can’t get ahead with wholesale corruption. If you were to travel to P’burg on to Sands, you would think you were on another planet. Unbelievable infrastructure and its adjunct, commerce, tells me NJ is doing something very wrong. Corruption has an insatiable appetite. 272k people bolted NJ last year. We need term limits.
From Ann Smulewicz: Mr. McDonough…you are right. I wrote a letter to the Governor in 2010 telling him most of what you write with a few thoughts of my own. He wrote back saying, “We have to give Atlantic City…five…more…years”. Remember, AC was the exclusive gaming capital in the region. When the referendum was drafted, there was…AC…getting a cut of the profits. That “cut” is what should have been returned to the patrons to make it attractive for our casinos to attract neighboring states’ gamblers to come to NJ to gamble. After 30 years of mismanaging trailers of cash, AC had its chance. The mismanagement of the TTF and the wholesale corruption of AC is why we need term limits.
http://www.njherald.com/20161120/a-casino-in-north-jersey-would-be-a-revenue-winner#