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It's not the best idea I've heard.
Berlin State Senator John Gallus is proposing a bill that would allow resort casinos to be built in Berlin and at the Pease International Tradeport. It is scheduled for a public hearing on March 6th.
I don't think it is going to pass. At least, it shouldn't. We're smarter than that, I hope.
I don't think we're desperate enough either in Portsmouth or Berlin to open the floodgates to gamblers either flying in or driving up for "a few days of fun."
We can do better.
Nor are we willing to put at risk the future of New Hampshire by relying on expanded gambling as a supposed source of income.
Oh, expanded gambling. It sounds so good -- such a good deal for the state. But greater gambling causes many side effects, and eventually doesn't bring much money into the state because the gambling interests put up their tent stakes, take hold in the state, and then rent lobbyists and make campaign contributions to "persuade" lawmakers to lower the state take.
Plus, the corruption we have seen in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Nevada should encourage us to turn thumbs down. Not good.
Having a casino as a destination site isn't going to help the Berlin economy all that much, and might well put some of the motels and hotels and restaurants in that area out of business.
Gambling casinos are the Wal-Marts of the "entertainment industry" when located in tourist areas. People go there, sleep there, play there, eat there, spend (as in mostly lose) their money there, and the corporate "profits" are sent out-of-state to the stockholders and corporate bosses.
Plus, local residents who might gamble there only have so much money; if you lose your paycheck playing slots, you won't be visiting your neighborhood restaurant or movie theater quite so often, or perhaps the neighborhood clothing store. The seduction of a quick buck is hard for some people to resist, and that will put more burden on other local services.
And as for Pease, I think we're doing just fine. I was one of the seven members of the original Pease Redevelopment Commission in 1990 and 1991 which set into motion a vision for Pease that has paid off in considerable airport-related businesses being located there. Some 6,000 jobs have been generated, many of them in technical industries and most of those well-paid. We don't need a couple of hundred low-paid service-type jobs with the resulting additional traffic, crime, and addiction problems resulting.
For New Hampshire and for our future generations, we can do better than this.
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