THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240221
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Those of us on City Council who believe that Portsmouth should not become a riverboat gambling community need your help, particularly at Willett Hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
After reading about the suicides of two parents due to riverboat casino gambling, I feel compelled to ask the citizens to take back control of our home place and make the city a better place to live for all.
On Feb. 22, The Virginian-Pilot printed a story about an Illinois mother who committed suicide because of her riverboat gambling addiction. It also provided us the account of a father, who this past Christmas season, committed suicide in Tunica, Miss.
Approximately 220,000 underage children were evicted or rejected from the casino in Atlantic City, N.J., in one year and 17 percent of those were problem gamblers. This is not what we want for our children.
A former New Jersey attorney general said ``anybody who goes into gambling should recognize . . . that organized crime will be attracted to it like sharks to a bloated body.''
In the year after riverboat gambling casino opened in Gulfport, Miss., robberies tripled, assaults doubled and burglaries doubled. The opportunity for crime to match these increases in Portsmouth would be a disaster.
The Virginia State Police reported in January 1995 that it was able to make some arrests in Henrico County of the criminal element that had infiltrated the bingo operation there.
The conclusion of the 1992 Illinois State Police Report, page 15, states ``. . . the benefits of casino gambling include new jobs, increased spending, and increased tax revenues. The costs include increased crime, increased organized crime activities, a deterioration of the business climate of the area, an increase in compulsive gambling of the residents, increased prostitution, an increase in the truant population, increased political corruption and exposure of the young to unsavory activities.''
We have so many (other) opportunities for our waterfront development.
Our Downtown image is slowly emerging as that of a fun place for the whole family to play and learn. Riverboat gambling casinos are not part of this image. We need to terminate this gambling direction for our city now.
We need to quit spending tax money pursuing gambling activity and use our time and resources to continue to improve our image.
We don't have many stores, which provide sales tax, left in Portsmouth. The majority of disposable income is being used up by drugs, crime (90 percent of which is drug related) and the lottery of which we can't tax. We certainly don't need the last ounce of blood we have left sucked out by a riverboat gambling casino and sent to Nevada.
In Atlantic City, N.J., 40 percent of the restaurants had to close because they couldn't compete with the casinos.
Ten percent of those who visit local riverboat casinos will become compulsive or pathological gamblers. Each compulsive gambler cost the community $52,000 a year to maintain and $20,000 to $40,000 to rehabilitate.
Please help us take back our government from the gambling interests. This is our Portsmouth! Together, we can truly make it a better place to live.
See you at Willett Hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Cameron C. Pitts
City Councilman
Feb. 23, 1995 by CNB