https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzH89jKb86c
A Reckless Proposal & Profiteering For Criminals
By Mani Amar
The amount of gang activity that occurs in Vancouver, our small but beautiful major city, rivals massive metropolitan areas across North America. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, & Chicago are well known throughout the world for gang activity, but another city has taken precedence on this list. Our city.
Vancouver generates billions of tax free dollars through its marijuana trade industry every year. Vancouver is geographically destined to be a major drug distribution hub. But instead of using resources to tackle such a drug issue, we are providing criminals with another reason to operate. Gambling.
Gambling, along with prohibited narcotics, alcohol, and prostitution have been historically the favourite industries for gangs to operate within. Gambling has an ominous aura; it attracts addictive personality peoples, it attracts organized crime, and it attracts violence. Gambling generates other dangerous criminal industries such as loan sharking and money laundering.
For a city that has been ravaged by violent crimes, a city with a drug industry with worldwide distribution, and a city with law enforcement resources stretched very thin, to even consider a mega casino expansion in a central location of the city is not only reckless, but simply stupid.
The very notion of PavCo bringing this proposal to Vancouver is based solely on greed. They do not care for our city, they do not care for our safety. They simply care about their own financial gain.
They bombard us with statistics of money, telling us that Vancouver will profit dearly from tax dollars and job creation. But they neglect to mention that lives will be damaged, government resources will be stretched further, our valuable tax dollars and the valuable tax dollars of our future generations will be used to salvage the socioeconomic downturn of our once beautiful, and more importantly, safe city.
I urge the council to consider the negative effects of this casino expansion. Consider all that will be lost, for this generation and our future.
This is nothing more than a reckless proposal and opportunity of profiteering for criminals. This is simply a situation where the cons outweigh the pros.