News   Mar 27, 2024
 1.2K     1 
News   Mar 27, 2024
 1.1K     2 
News   Mar 27, 2024
 639     0 

OLG Toronto/GTA casino proposal (where to put it?)

The social implications? The crime? The near-daily suicides? The lack of economic impact? The banality of such a development?

Richard Florida wrote a great article just the other day in the Star:

Yes, the Monte Carlo casino has all but destroyed poor Monaco:

Real_Monte_Carlo_Casino.jpg
 
I don't have anything against a casino going in but I would hope - out of sheer NIMBYism, mind - that it doesn't go into the Portlands. I'd much rather see a mix of residential and light industry there. I'd love to see Pinewood expand again and more film and television production infrastructure go in there. Ontario Place certainly needs revamping - why not there?

In any case, it seems that a casino would be ideal on a lakefront location.
 
If Toronto were to build a casino they should build something high-end like the MGM Grand in Detroit. Inside its pure posh! I'd say its one the nicer casino's outside of Vegas i have been to. Stick the casino maybe on the CNE grounds.

mgm-grand-detroit-promotions.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
However, the most likely location I feel would be the Woodbine site. Infact, if I were a betting man... I would suggest that Woodbine is almost certainly going to be the location of the Casino. I'm fairly OK with this. On the issue of social disruption and negative impacts I actually feel the Woodbine site is a far worse location because the neighbourhoods adjacent to this location are far more vulnerable than the limited impact one would expect at Ontario Place. This would be an interesting irony, with left-leaning downtown councillors actually forcing the Casino to locate in a location where the social impact would be higher.

Also: Woodbine is in the Fords' ward. And it'd be a terrific excuse to kick-start the Woodbine Live! pipe dream, ahem ahem...
 
I will go as far as to say that this statement is actually idiotic. Fallsview Casino as well as Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls are both creating ALOT of revenue. The origional plan was to demolish Casino Niagara once the new one was built, but they actually kept both open because they continued to create revenue for OLG. Niagara Falls is also anything but a rundown hellhole. Whether you like the development or not, it has not and will not leave Niagara Falls for a long time. Just recently Hilton expanded their massive hotel into the tallest hotel in Canada.

And the ugliest, most hideously grotesque for its height in Canada. From an architectural/urbanistic standpoint, if you're going to advocate something like that for Toronto, you should be shot.
 
If this is to happen I toss my hat in the ring in favour of Woodbine. It should be the boost Woodbine Live needs to get developed. Extend the Pearson monorail so that people can get there direct from the airport, and also travel easily between the casino and downtown with the monorail and Air-Rail link. Woodbine is big enough to have a full shopping/entertainment/gambling complex. A mini Vegas, and even bigger than the Woodbine Live plan (eat up some of the massive parking lots in the Woodbine Live plan with more casinos, hotels, etc. and put the parking underground or in garages. I don't gamble much, but the Vegas strip is fun and what I like is walking between casinos, seeing the hotels, eating in restaurants, doing some shopping, and stopping for an hour or so at blackjack tables in the different hotels. Rather than building one big casino, build a half dozen smaller ones, divided by restaurants, hotels, clubs, shows, shops. It would be an easily accessible destination for those on short stopovers at Pearson, right off the 401 and 427, more accessible for the fast growing suburbs and with the Air-Rail link and monorail could be easily accessible from downtown. It would cannibalize our downtown restaurants and clubs less.

I mean, the Woodbine Live project is not crazy enough to be like Vegas, it looks like where you end up if you make a wrong turn in Orlando, and you didn't want to be in Orlando in the first place. I don't see myself going there much. But I really do not want this at OP or the Ex. And I don't see it happening. There will be some serious opposition to the casino there.
 
You're absolutely right. Cities with existing casinos have all become hellhole rundown cities with shooting sprees and mass suicides.
Whether you can admit it or not, people will gamble and have access to gamble if they want to even if the closest casino is a 10 hour flight.
Torontonians fear with casinos reminds me of their fear with pedestrian streets.

As someone from Niagara, I can assure you that my comments are founded on the reality of the siituation down there. Yes, the casinos have helped provide some economic opportunities (mostly in the form of low paying seasonal jobs, which are without a doubt the worst jobs you can create), but I think you have little clue about what actually is going on down there. I wasn't lying when I said there are near-daily suicides. I have a friend who worked as a security guard there who would regularly find people hung in washrooms and a friend of my mom's killed himself when his gambling got the best of him and the mob got involved. And yes, The mob is a reality in Niagara. Maybe it's a reality in Toronto too, but it's no coincidence that it happens to exist in Niagara (a city of 75,000 people shouldn't have organized crime). You really don't need to find a reason to entice those people to take up shop here.

And the fact is, many studies have shown that there is a link between prevalence of gambling addictions and easier accessibility. Casinos provide the type of immediate feedback that contributes to addictions in a way something like a scratch ticket or a Proline can't. Not only this, but when people gamble at a casino they spend far more than they would gambling on something like the lottery. We're talking putting houses on the line, something you just can't do with the current forms of accessible gambling without raising a red flag (try buying $1,000 worth of lottery tickets... good luck).

My basis for not wanting a casino here is based on facts and my own first hand experiences of the tourism sector in Niagara. It's not based on a fear of the boogie man, and to be honest your sarcastic response only suggests to me that you know very little about the realities of such developments. I'd really suggest you look into it before being so glib.
 
Yes, the Monte Carlo casino has all but destroyed poor Monaco:

Real_Monte_Carlo_Casino.jpg

You do realize that the Monte Carlo Casino is 150+ years old right? And that the town essentially developed around the casino? Oh and that it's illegal for Monaco's citizens to gamble in the casino? Pretty certain that none of that has anything in common with Toronto. Also, for every Monte Carlo there's hundreds of other horrendous casinos in the world that are a blight on their surroundings and the community.
 
(a city of 75,000 people shouldn't have organized crime).
Right. And a city of 2.7 million should? Nowhere should have organised crime.

Anyway, if you truly have such a concern with suicides and organised crime being involved, the last thing you should want to do is run it all underground. I'll bring it up again because it's basically the same thing: we've tried stopping illegal drug use as well.

I understand addiction problems pretty well from experience and from what I've studied on the subject and I can tell you right now that accessability is the least of problems where addictions are concerned. I understand gambling addictions can be serious, but so can food addictions. Sure, one will put the house up and then owe some angry gangsters a lot of money and the other will be morbidly obese and a sad waste of life. You don't treat either one's problems by taking away that which caused their end condition but by treating the physiology and psychology behind the addiction. The war on drugs doesn't work for a reason.

Anyway.....I'd like another giant indoor playground in Ontario, thankyouverymuch and I think it should go on the lakefront somewhere....no offence to anyone but Woodbine is just not on. It's just a terrible location, I think...geographically. I know I wouldn't travel there. I'd keep going to Niagara Falls. Then again, I don't gamble and just go to meet people and drink so I guess they wouldn't even care what I think. Though, on the other hand, I can spend as much at the bar as a lot of the gamblers there. Clearly I'm confused as to what OLG really wants from me and need to go to bed. A good night to all.
 
Last edited:
Put it under the flight path of the airport, or maybe in a noxious industrial zone or near a landfill site. If it is going to be in Toronto, that's where it belongs.

But don't put it on the waterfront or in any prime part of the city.
 
Right. And a city of 2.7 million should? Nowhere should have organised crime.
You missed my point. The point is, why would a city of 75,000 have organized crime? It's not like such a thing is prevalent in Peterborough or Brantford
Anyway, if you truly have such a concern with suicides and organised crime being involved, the last thing you should want to do is run it all underground. I'll bring it up again because it's basically the same thing: we've tried stopping illegal drug use as well.

I understand addiction problems pretty well from experience and from what I've studied on the subject and I can tell you right now that accessability is the least of problems where addictions are concerned. I understand gambling addictions can be serious, but so can food addictions. Sure, one will put the house up and then owe some angry gangsters a lot of money and the other will be morbidly obese and a sad waste of life. You don't treat either one's problems by taking away that which caused their end condition but by treating the physiology and psychology behind the addiction. The war on drugs doesn't work for a reason.

Why provide people an opportunity to either create or exacerbate a problem and then make the suggestion that it's better to do that and solve their addiction problems afterwards? For such a small economic return, is that worth doing? And you will never stop people from doing something like drugs because people will always slip through the cracks. But drugs aren't rampant in our society (I've never seen anything beyond a joint in my life) and we do our best to deter it. Why are we fine with deterring drug use but fine with enabling gambling addictions?

I don't think anyone is suggesting it should be forced underground and there still are outposts in this province where you're welcome to gamble. But you don't get a gambling addiction without being exposed to it (nor do you seek out underground gambling rings unless you're already a problem gambler). My point is that there are thousands (potentially "tens of" if our stats are on par with elsewhere) of Torontonians who are susceptible to becoming addicted, who aren't currently, simply because of the lack of exposure and for some reason people are writing that off as collateral damage.

And to be honest the addiction issue is just one part of my concern, which I shared when I made my original post that included Richard Florida's great article from the Star. I just think Toronto can do better than this. We don't need to stoop to such a low level.
 
Last edited:
The social implications? The crime? The near-daily suicides? The lack of economic impact? The banality of such a development?

Richard Florida wrote a great article just the other day in the Star:

Not for the first time, Richard Florida completely misses the point. Economic spinoffs? Sheesh.

The casino debate is about revenues. And if gambling is a tax that people actually want to pay, then maybe it's a pretty good tax. It's too bad that it hits the poor harder, because the poor enjoy gambling more (the rich do it in the stock market). But increasing property taxes would hit the poor harder too. So let's have a casino, and make sure that we are dealing adequately with the addiction problems.

(How much economic spinoff does Richard Florida's $400,000 government-funded salary generate by the way?)
 
Not for the first time, Richard Florida completely misses the point. Economic spinoffs? Sheesh.

The casino debate is about revenues. And if gambling is a tax that people actually want to pay, then maybe it's a pretty good tax. It's too bad that it hits the poor harder, because the poor enjoy gambling more (the rich do it in the stock market). But increasing property taxes would hit the poor harder too. So let's have a casino, and make sure that we are dealing adequately with the addiction problems.

(How much economic spinoff does Richard Florida's $400,000 government-funded salary generate by the way?)

I think you are missing the point, not Richard Florida.
 

Back
Top