[gristle]

Eh? So every other business in the City is run for the benefit of the people and a casino is run for the benefit of Evil Inc.?

I'm lost as to how a restaurant at a casino would take away jobs from a restaurant near a casino.

The drivel about evil is your reading of the situation. Facilities in a casino are subsidized by the proceeds generated by the casino. The ratio of gambling losers greatly exceeds winners, so the house always wins and wins big. The house can then subsidize the facilities to keep gamblers inside and to not venture out into the city. The city is merely a location, and not a beneficiary, for a casino.

 

[buildup]

Who cares if Casino restaurants are subsidized. People dont go out on the town to be cheap. The cheapest meal is the one you cook at home. People go out for the experience - the chef, the venue, the urban setting - whatever.
If you are anti-casino for ethical reasons then you should be willing to forgo the the social programs the tax revenues finance - and be willing to pay higher income or property taxes as replacement.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I strongly believe that the revenues the city makes from the casino should go to transit expansion, not to help the bottom line.

 

[ptbotrmpfn]

Who cares if Casino restaurants are subsidized. People dont go out on the town to be cheap. The cheapest meal is the one you cook at home. People go out for the experience - the chef, the venue, the urban setting - whatever.
If you are anti-casino for ethical reasons then you should be willing to forgo the the social programs the tax revenues finance - and be willing to pay higher income or property taxes as replacement.

everyone has thier own resoning to go out on the town. some of are cheapos as we dont have 1000's of $ to waist on a meal thats made by some chief. i go downtown for the bargons sometimes and or for the stiff you just cant get anywhere else out in the burbs. foods food. why pay stupid amounts for the things you can make at home.

 

[RC8]

Who cares if Casino restaurants are subsidized. People dont go out on the town to be cheap. The cheapest meal is the one you cook at home. People go out for the experience - the chef, the venue, the urban setting - whatever.
If you are anti-casino for ethical reasons then you should be willing to forgo the the social programs the tax revenues finance - and be willing to pay higher income or property taxes as replacement.

As I explained in the other casino thread, this casino is nothing but another scheme to redistribute money from downtown Toronto onto the rest of the province (and even the city of Toronto). Revenue will be used to subsidise the inefficient suburban lifestyle of many while the social costs are inflicted predominantly onto Toronto's core.

People in all residential areas of Toronto would oppose a casino in their own wards. It's unethical to impose this on downtown Toronto if most of the revenue will be spent by the City and Province in far away suburbs.

 

[buildup]

Actually its a scheme to redistribute money from impulsive, addicted, rich, foolish or visiting people to more worthy causes. Its a voluntary tax which I choose not to pay. I wish all taxes were as easy to evade.

 

[RC8]

Actually its a scheme to redistribute money from impulsive, addicted, rich, foolish or visiting people to more worthy causes. Its a voluntary tax which I choose not to pay. I wish all taxes were as easy to evade.

Worthy causes in Etobicoke and Sarnia... All the while increasing crime-rates in downtown Toronto and leaving downtown Toronto wards to deal with these 'addicts' and the ones who have lost it all.

Why don't we build the casino in Vaughan, next to Wonderland, and use it to pay for our DRL instead?

If downtown Toronto is going to be stuck with all the negative effects of the casino, downtown Toronto wards should keep a very large share of its property taxes.

 

[diminutive]

If downtown Toronto is going to be stuck with all the negative effects of the casino, downtown Toronto wards should keep a very large share of its property taxes.

That's not quite true... It would depend where the casino's patrons come from. If only downtown condo dwellers go, then sure, it would. If a patron comes in from Etobicoke or Pickering and looses all of their money, the negative effect will be on their life back in Etobicoke or Pickering. 'Downtown' wouldn't have lost anything...

More over, currently, your line of reasoning would suggest that downtown Toronto should be barred from receiving certain funds the Ontario government makes from casinos elsewhere in the Province. EVEN THOUGH downtown residents could very well be the ones loosing their life savings and having their condos foreclosed on!

If you applied the same logic in otherways, you would also reach conclusions like smokers (or relatives of smokers) are entitled to more funding because they pay more taxes and harm their life for others. Or rich people deserve more money from the government because they contribute more. Which is ridiculous.

It's kind of disgusting to see this kind of parochial venom towards other part of the Province. You can't just fence off parts of the government's revenue, the entire point of the budget is to benefit the Province as a whole.

(also, since you mentioned 'property taxes,' the city would in any case keep 100% of property taxes of any casino since only the city levies property taxes...)

 

[RC8]

diminutive,

The parochial venom is being thrown by those who want a giant casino in downtown Toronto but would never allow a casino in their own ward.

I for one don't want a mega-casino anywhere near any residential area in the province.

We shouldn't ask people to put up with higher crime rates so that we can pave streets somewhere else. Wealth-redistribution should be done by taxation of income and used to significantly improve the quality of life of those in need.

We should concentrate instead on building sustainable and safe mixed use walkable communities. If we did that, we wouldn't need to sacrifice neighbourhoods for a casino to make ends meet.

 

[diminutive]

We shouldn't ask people to put up with higher crime rates so that we can pave streets somewhere else. Wealth-redistribution should be done by taxation of income and used to significantly improve the quality of life of those in need.

Right.

The moral-political-economic decision of whether we should raise revenue from casinos is different from where casinos should be located, though.

I'm personally not sure on the cost-benefit of casinos. Obviously they raise some tax revenue, but there are social externalities. Contrary to you though, the negative effects of a casino are not always 'local.' The only such 'local' effect would be casino induced crime, and the data here is generally ambiguous in terms of effect. Funnily, casinos which are centrally located and designed as part of larger urban projects are far less likely to induce crime increases than casinos located in isolated locations.

The far more serious concern is over gambling by low-income residents, who can really destroy their lives. The negative impacts of this are inherently regional, not local. If someone from Pickering comes to a downtown casino and looses everything, the pain is felt in Pickering. In light of this, the bulk of any theoretical revenue should be directed towards regional as opposed to local governments.

 

[RC8]

Some pain may be felt in Pickering, but if said person ends up homeless we'll have to prepare a bed for him in a downtown shelter. I don't doubt the province will lend assistance to Pickering to help with any casino inflicted pains, too, but if past experiences are anything to go by, downtown Toronto will be left to fend for itself against all externalities (without even the City of Toronto standing up for it).

I don't see anything wrong with raising revenues from casinos so long as members of a particular community actually want a casino near them. That's why we sell alcohol, lottery tickets, and cigarettes. But to impose something like a casino on a community that doesn't need it and doesn't want it, to fix problems elsewhere... that comes across as terribly unfair to me.

 

[diminutive]

Some pain may be felt in Pickering, but if said person ends up homeless we'll have to prepare a bed for him in a downtown shelter. I don't doubt the province will lend assistance to Pickering to help with any casino inflicted pains, too, but if past experiences are anything to go by, downtown Toronto will be left to fend for itself against all externalities (without even the City of Toronto standing up for it).

I disagree with you, but even following your logic shows that a casinos effects (good AND bad) would be overwhelmingly regional, not 'local.' Keeping Mr.Pickering, it wouldn't matter at all whether he bankrupted himself in downtown Toronto or Casino Rama. The effects are regional and occur regardless of where a casino is located.

I don't see anything wrong with raising revenues from casinos so long as members of a particular community actually want a casino near them. That's why we sell alcohol, lottery tickets, and cigarettes. But to impose something like a casino on a community that doesn't need it and doesn't want it, to fix problems elsewhere... that comes across as terribly unfair to me.

You're picking an irrelevant 'community' though. The relevant community here isn't downtown Toronto, it's the Province which will internalize most of the costs and benefits.

What if the MTCC's IMMEDIATE area supported a Casino (mostly hotels and tourist traps, not impossible to imagine they would)? Would that make the proposal good? No, obviously not since they wouldn't be internalizing all of the casino's costs.

The relevant 'community' is the one which internalizes most of the costs, which in this case is the Province and not the local ward.

 

[GenerationW]

I strongly believe that the revenues the city makes from the casino should go to transit expansion, not to help the bottom line.

So would I but I doubt the City would want to limit its options. Any casino profits would very likely go into general revenues.

 

[Sir Novelty Fashion]

Went up to Woodbine for the first time last night. There's something quite lovely about horseracing as an activity, and something wistful about the grand infrastructure of that grandstand, still new-looking, but grossly overbuilt to the new realities of online and off-track betting; the people have gone elsewhere and entire floors lie empty and littered.

Under the grandstand are the slots. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, teeming with people, claustrophobically packed in, squeezing past each other, sitting, crowding, jostling, pushing buttons, losing money. It is an unpleasant place. Not unpleasant enough to draw people in, mind you. If you've seen one casino, you've seen them all. All this, right here in the City of Toronto; in the heart of Fordlandia, no less. You pass Don Bosco on the bus ride there. What kind of city would host such a place? Well, ours.

 

[adma]

. What kind of city would host such a place? Well, ours.

Well, not just ours, I'll betcha, But at least it's kind of out of sight, out of mind out there--a little like Aqueduct in NYC.

I tend to refer to such places as "where 20th century North American mass culture goes to die". Y'know, all the pre-Interweb joie de vivre about network television and Top 40 and all of that--its zombie remains lurk here, as do the zombies who never really got over the passing of said old order...