Strathcona Residents’ Association
c/o 601 Keefer Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 3V8
Strathcona-residents.org

January 5, 2011

To The Mayor and City Council of Vancouver:

As Chair of The Strathcona Resident’s Association (SRA), I am writing to inform you that at our January 5, 2011 meeting:

The Strathcona Residents Association unanimously voted to oppose the expansion of the Edgewater Casino at BC Place Stadium in False Creek.

The SRA urges City Council to refuse to pass the B.C. Government’s application to expand gaming in the municipality, and to oppose the building of the Edgewater mega-casino.

Our reasons for opposition to the building of the expanded Edgewater casino include the following:

1. The planned casino is less than a ten minute walk from our neighbourhood. The well-documented crime that attends casinos, even in provinces with far better gambling regulation than that observed in British Columbia, is not welcome. Strathcona already suffers from crime levels far worse than most other districts. Our position is that situating a massive casino so close to the Downtown Eastside, with its pre-existing crime and policing troubles, is unwise to say the least. Recent news reports demonstrate that casinos provide easy access to money laundering for organized crime, and casinos always attract gang activity. We ask you to acknowledge the growing threat that gangs constitute to our communities.

2. The expanded casino will bring increased traffic to the tune of 300 cars per hour, which will negatively impact our community.

3. The BC government expanded gaming in this province on the back of support from charities who expected to be supported by gaming revenues. Charities have been radically cut away from these revenues. Our neighbourhood, like every other, derives important services from these charities. We see no benefit from expanded gaming in our community.

4. We are opposed to gambling and gambling expansion in general as it significantly increases social ills, something our community witnesses in graphic form daily.

Again, we urge you to decline the application for gaming expansion, and remind you that Strathcona’s opposition is strong and unanimous.

Sincerely,

James C. Johnstone
Chairperson, Strathcona Residents’ Association
Chair@strathcona-residents.org

604-254-4666

cc. Jenny Kwan, MLA
Libby Davies, MP

Singapore, which is a world leader in planning and which very carefully designed its casino industry to market almost exclusively to tourists and very wealthy clientele;

Singapore, which has almost the lowest crime rate in the world, strict and well-funded policing and zero tolerance for gang activity;

Singapore, which wants the Asian/Chinese high-roller gambling dollars that we naively think we can compete with them for;

Singapore,which is only a short, low-cost flight away from Hong Kong or China.

And when you get to Singapore, you get this:

Do BC and Vancouver really think we are going to induce the Chinese big spender to come halfway around the world to be impressed by this?:

Now, let’s look at other issues associated with mega-casinos.

What we sometimes hear from our elected public officials on this topic goes like this: “oh, the new casino isn’t in a residential area, and lots of cities have them.”

Wrong.

Ask the False Creek Residents Association whether or not they agree that this is not a residential area! And this district is extremely close to both Yaletown (2 minute walk away) and Gastown, not to mention Strathcona, only a 10 minute walk away—and  with the Prior/Venables artery, gamblers and loan sharks will be passing right through the neighbourhood daily.

Furthermore, do other cities really put mega-casinos in their downtown core?

No, they don’t. Chicago, for example. Their “downtown” casino? It’s 20 minutes outside of Chicago downtown, very like our current River Rock Casino in Richmond. Singapore’s casinos charge $80 for locals to enter, and they have one at their huge major resort downtown that is very far from any residential area. The other is on an island 10 miles from the city. Everything is strictly designed for tourism, not local gambling.

Montreal’s casino is on the Expo island–again away from the city residential heart, as is the casino in Edmonton. NO cities except declining poverty traps like Detroit have allowed this.

This is not normal urban planning. We are not even approaching the frontier of “urban planning” here. After the decades and tens of millions of dollars that have gone into making Vancouver the most livable city in the world, are twe are going to plop Las Vegas into it? And for what? So that our rich and corporations can have the lowest taxes anywhere? And on that topic, what has that done for us lately? Where are the waves of major corporate head offices coming our way because of the low taxes? Non-existent.

Vancouver! You—City Council as well as Vancouver citizens— must stand up and defy the province on this one.