Bravo!

Hey, it’s an election year! It’s an Election Year.
Anyway, better nothing than a casino.

Now how will BC Place make money? Will someone please think of the children?

@ Jesse;

If you or any parent are taking their kids to the ‘casino’ then there are bigger issues up for discussion.

And there is more crime and money laundering happening in the ‘legally licensed’ night clubs in the supposed ‘entertainment district’ than you will hit at any casino, yet I don’t hear you crying about those ‘children’ that frequent them.

@ Everyman:

And what, ulitmately, is stopping them?

As soon as the supposed ‘backlash’ comes, you will have the racial arguments come fast and furious and groups like the BC Civil Libs etc will step in and find something under the Indian Act or the Charter.

They own 8.67 hectres in that area that they do not have to bow to the city to develop.

A casino is money in their pockets – free and clear.

And I agree 110%, money should have been given in lieu of.

The Sqaumish FN hold some of the most expensive rental properties in Vancouver, including the River Rock.

PS Max,

The Squamish don’t own the River Rock. The Musqueum get some payment for it, but they neither own, nor operate it.

City of Richmond passed that one.

Being fully cognizant of the issues of self-determination and autonomy surrounding whatever the Squamish end up doing at Vanier Park, and being, of course, an elitist caucasian NIMBY west sider, I have to ask: If, for the sake of argument, a deal was in fact struck by the Squamish to build a casino on that site, is there *anything* that could be done by any level or branch of government to stop it? Presumably it would require a license from whatever entity regulates and issues those-? Sorry to plead ignorance, but I’m feeling just a touch of alarm here. It’s already bad enough that that site looks likely to be turned into Yaletown West… Vegas North would be beyond the pale.
gmgw

@gmgw 13
Hopefully the CoV would refuse to connect any of the development to the City’s water, sewer and road network.

er, “he” doesn’t live in a residential area.

Many other very dedicated people, not just those mentioned above were instrumental in making this happen. My response above was a reaction to the one-sided political slant taken in the CBC report. My apology. The casino coalition consisted of people from across the City of all political convictions, and I’m sure many with none other than a love of our City.

Bravo to the vancityvegas people for making this happen.

Have to wonder where this fear mongering about the Squamish is coming from.

Given the common assumption that is nothing stopping the SFN from building a casino at the foot of Burrard Bridge, wouldn’t the fact that they have chosen to look at residential development instead suggest that they had concluded a casino would be a crappy use of the land?

Which, you know, would make them quite a bit more savvy on this matter than the Province of British Columbia.

I’m sure nothing could be further from the minds of the pro-casino side than whipping up the west side nimbies into a froth of indignation over this completely fabricated threat. Heaven forbid!

A few thoughts.

As listeners to the CKNW Civic Affairs Panel know, I had considerable difficulty chosing one side or the other on the Casino debate. However, in the end, I felt that given that Vancouver had already accepted a significant casino operation in the downtown; the casino/hotel/entertainment complex would complement the city’s tourism infrastructure and had been tied for years to the renovation of BC Place; the property had been ‘zoned’ for this use, and the size, height, bulk was in conformance with the Official Community Plan; and the proposal had the support of the Board of Trade and other similar organizations….I found myself being more supportive than opposed.

I must say my gentle support was also spurred on by some of the opposition. As one opponent said on CBC this morning, her opposition began because non-profits were not getting the money that had been promised by the province. Rick Cluff quite rightly said in response, “well isn’t that a provincial matter, rather than a municipal issue?” Yes, she said, but she now had concerns about gambling addictions, the size of the building, etc. etc.

So I am not broken hearted that the project has been rejected. There were many other aspects about the project that troubled me, that I have previously set out on this blog. However, I think it is worthwhile to speculate on what might happen next, both in terms of the future of this site, and where a major destination casino might land.

With respect to the latter, the Fourth Horeseman wrote: “stop listening to Michael Geller’s alarmist screed, please.”

I assume this is a reference to the fact that I did on one occasion report on CKNW that I had heard others suggest that a casino might locate on the Squamish lands at the South End of the Burrard Street Bridge. I emphasized that I had no first hand knowledge that the Squamish Nation was even considering this, but added that Casinos often locate on native lands elsewhere.

Ironically, this might be a greater possibility now, rather than a month ago for a casino on a portion of the Squamish lands because of two recent decisions….one, Council has rejected an expanded casino downtown; and two, the Squamish Nation band members have rejected changes that would have made it easier and more financially attractive to develop condominiums on their lands.

Personally, I think there’s a greater likelihood of a major casino now being developed in Surrey, perhaps on the lands adjacent to King George SkyTrain Station. I say this since a major mixed use project including a casino was contemplated in the past for this site. It could happen….

Now as for the BC Place site, I’m troubled by another statement by the Fourth Horseman:

“that David Podmore said, as he has said for the last few weeks, that not expanding the casino will not affect the improvements at BC Place and that taxpayers will “not be stuck with the cost”.

Which is a significant departure from what was first said.”

What I heard David say was that the BC Place roof and other improvements would not be impacted by a rejection of the casino. Well this should be obvious to all, since the works are underway and cannot be stopped.

But I am confused by “taxpayers will not be stuck with the cost”.

The cost of the BC Place improvements will not be paid for by increased beer and hot dog sales. It was hoped that the sale and lease of the adjacent lands would be a major contributor to the cost. While the casino was only contributing a portion of the total cost, the amount was not insignificant.

Council and staff have said emphatically that they do not want to see more condos on this site. I agree with this position. But I am a bit stumped when it comes to what might be alternative uses.

Yesterday I was called by CTV who asked me about the future of this property. Might we see a major shopping centre? No, I said…pointing to the nearby International Village as an example of a failed major retail undertaking. What about hotels? Well, new hotels in Vancouver are not generally viable without some form of ‘subsidy’. Condominiums are the best way to subsidize a hotel, but we don’t want condos here.

An expanded casino might have subsidized two hotels, but I doubt whether we’ll see two hotels without the expanded casino. I do think hotel may be a viable use in the future, noting there is a hotel next to Rogers Stadium in Toronto. But it is a bit of a longshot, without some supporting uses.

So, unless there are sufficient development revenues, one way or another, taxpayers will be ‘stuck’ with the cost of the BC Place improvements….they may not be just Vancouver city taxpayers, but they will be taxpayers…that’s where the province and Pavco get their money!

A final observation. Only a couple of months ago, on CKNW, Frances Bula, Jim Green and I generally concluded that the casino expansion was a ‘done deal’. On two occasions we discussed it, an neither conversation generated any phone calls…so the topic was dropped.

A week later, I got a message from Pete McMartin asking me if I had heard anything about opposition to the casino. I told him that Sean Bickerton and his False Creek neighbours were trying to organize something, but he noted this was ‘old news’.

Howevever, in a relatively short period of time, an initiative started by Judy Rudin and Peter Ladner and Sandy Garassimo, soon joined by many, many others started to gain momentum. Like the old Arlo Guthrie song, it morphed into a movement, and once it got going, it couldn’t be stopped. As I watched this happening, I was reminded of a book I read during the last municipal election….Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everyone: The Power of Organizing without an Organization.

It’s all about how social media are changing the way society operates. And the rejection of this casino is a perfect example. Now I can’t wait to see what is the next big issue or cause to be driven by social media.

Good morning, Michael,

I think you have left out some very cogent points in your piece, and have misunderstood some of mine.

First, the city has very clearly left a door open to Paragon to come back to the table in that they can move the Edgewater, size as, to the BC Place site. So, back to the drawing board for the proponents.

With regards to revenues to PavCo to pay for any part of BC Place, you and I both know that, in the beginning, the threat that without the casino, those improvements somehow wouldn’t be paid for, were put out to the public. That $500+ million number was allowed to float out there, to confuse the public.

Only when the math was done–$6 million a year to PavCo from the casino clearly wasn’t gonna pay for all that, as it would take about 100 years to do so—were we informed that the Government of BC had given various grants, etc towards the improvements. The numbers kept changing—I think the last number I heard about the “cost” to taxpayers of the BC Place re-do was $150 million. And that, to still justify the building of an expanded casino. Since it is BC Place, and has operated in the years before the casino proposal came up, and is a provincial asset that operates as a benefit for us all, then yes, the people of Vancouver shouldn’t be totally on the hook for any improvements that they weren’t consulted about.

Let’s review: a publically owned facility, with over $500 million of improvements (including a type of roof specifically, uh, promoted to the Minister by a former BCLC president and current board member of Paragon). It was a circuitous argument: The more expensive roof and other improvements would be the justification for an expanded casino; the expanded casino was the justification for the more expensive roof and improvements.

While we all know that structural maintenence is important in maintaining an asset, this roof, was, “way over the top” to coin a phrase, in so many ways.

Additionally, we may have been the only jurisdiction in North America in the last several years to pump money into a facilty that houses professional sports teams. I think that these kind of facility programs are hard to pass today as public referendums in the States show us, and as we have recently seen in Quebec. Professional sports teams should be putting more of their own money into improvements, as I see it. If you were to say that the Vancouver sports market is too small to support that, I would then have to ask you if you wouldn’t say that would be true about the size of the proposed casino that failed, yesterday?

As for the question of whether a casino could be developed on native land, I put it to you that the Squamish could have developed a casino anywhere on their lands. I suspect that they would have to take into consideration the business plan (and the origin of projected revenue numbers!), social challenges, and costs, as everyone else would have to. Perhaps, they would find such a proposal lacking, as did city council, yesterday.

Finally, Michael, I appreciate your perspective on this issue, though I disagree with some of your comments. I would hope that you, of all people, would be willing to lend your considerable talents and expertise to the city and to the proponents (including the provincial government) as they go forward to look for the best use for the lands around BC Place.

Which is to say we were always stuck with the cost.

Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, the casino land lease was never meant to pay for the roof, not sure where the confusion comes from. The Casino land is only part of the development set to occur around the stadium the remaining developments around the stadium are expected to contribute around the same money to Pavco. It still won’t cover all the costs from the upgrades but will recoup a fair chunk of that. There is the still missing naming rights to be announced and the new stadium is also scheduled to be revenue positive as opposed to losing money beforehand due to increased bookings (Whitecaps/potential for concerts) and lower energy overhead from no longer having to keep the roof inflated.
All in all there are many pieces to this the casino was only one of them.

Fourth Horseman…thanks for your thoughts.

I personally questioned the value for money related to the BC Place upgrade and new roof. But that’s water under the bridge.

I would like to add a postscript to my earlier comment. After I posted it, I listened to the Mayor on CKNW this morning and while he didn’t say this explicityly, I realized that there is a very high likelihood that a revised casino application will come forward for the BC Place lands. From what he said, and didn’t say, it was my distinct impression that discussions have already taken place with the province and the applicant, confirming that this is going to happen.

In accordance with the Council ‘moratorium on expansion’, it will not likely represent an expansion of the existing facility in terms of the number of slots or tables, but I suspect it will be designed so that it can be expanded at some time in the future!

I am personally not troubled by this possibility. However, I am troubled by the pronouncements I have been hearing to the effect that a casino is not in keeping with Vancouver’s brand…casinos lead to money laundering and other crime; there already is a very high level of problem gambling and addiction.

If council really felt strongly about this, one might ask why it didn’t close the door to a relocation of the existing facility to the BC Place lands. While we may not be getting an expanded facility in the immediate future, I suspect we will see a new casino on the BC Place lands. Bear this in mind as you listen to the conversation now taking place!

@ Michael: Council might not have closed the door to a relocation, but the courts probably will, if it comes to that.

Ian Pitfield, who knows his way around these things, has written to the city legal department, drawing their attention to a fatal defect he sees in the procedural protocol. I.e., pursuant to the Gaming Control Act, no relocation of a casino can be passed absent an application (setting out the full plan) by the BC Lottery Corporation.

Which never made the required application to Council. Absent a full public consultation process in which the entire proposal is set out, BCLC is not authorized to relocate its facility.

This is not a minor technicality, and as things stand, Pitfield doesn’t see that there is a way out for the BCLC or Paragon here.

Our coalition has opposed not only the expansion but also the relocation, on the grounds set out by Dr Shao Hua Lu and the BCMA: locating a casino in a major regional sports facility is a high risk choice.

Young males are the population most at risk of developing a gambling addiction–their rates are essentially double those of the general population. Youth with gambling problems are 18 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide.

We are really tempting fate with this relocation, especially as the public hearing process was very inadequate for addressing complex issues of this kind.

Our group will be watching closely.

@ Sandy, #33:
“locating a casino in a major regional sports facility is a high risk choice”

that choice has already been made…

are you just against casinos in general? or where would a good location be?

tf, you blew your argument right out of teh water with the statement about leaving gambling to the underground economy. Things are bad, yes, with the governemnt involved. One just has to read Pete McMartin’s column today – see the link in 4th Horseman’s comment, to see how bad. But they would be much worse, and we would have next to no hope of changing policy or setting priorities for how to spend “profits”, if gambling (I refiuse to call it gaming) were in the hands of organized crime.

Re: Max at 36

It’s not our fault people chose to work for a casino. Would you cry about people who chose to work at a gun factory that got shut down? Neither the provincial government nor the city government has a mandate to create or maintain “make work” projects for casino workers. The effects on the many (increased gambling addiction, crime, domestic abuse, suicides) has to be weighed against the effects on the few (the casino workers).

Fourth Horseman, that was a very disturbing link you provided. The McMartin/Pynn story borders on the absurd, if it wasn’t our money at stake. I understand Pete McMartin may be writing further on this matter.

Sandy, I am intrigued by your comments. It remains to be seen if the Edgewater casino can be relocated, but I must say that having listened to the Mayor this morning on CKNW, (who I might add has improved considerably in his radio interviews compared to a couple of years ago), I was left with a distinct impression that a relocated Edgewater Casino may well be in the cards. However,I don’t think we should expect to see any new proposal until after the election!

If any of you want to hear the Mayor’s interview, you can find it on the CKNW website.

In 2009 Surrey went through a brutal and searing public hearing process over the approval of slot machines at the Surrey Newton Bingo Hall. The vote went 5-4. In casting the deciding vote, Mayor Dianne Watts stated that she didn’t want to do it, but could see no other way to get desperately needed money to the charities.

Many charities who lent their support and good name to the application–including the Surrey Hospice Society, the Learning Disabilities Association of BC, North Delta Minor Hockey Association, the Surrey Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and the like, had all been told that if the bingo hall did not get the slot machines then it would close and they would lose whatever gaming money was coming out of the centre now.

So they came out to Surrey Council in force and begged for the slot machines, just like the employees came and begged Vancouver City Council for their jobs.

All for naught. Although the charities had lent their good name and provided the decisive rationale for expansion of gambling, they were shut out of bingo proceeds just months later when the provincial government moved to take all those revenues for itself.

Today the Surrey Hospice Society is at the brink of closure, just like the Kelowna Women’s Shelter did earlier this year.

Anyone who thinks Surrey City Council is salivating at the chance for another public debate on gambling expansion should consider the electoral prospects of councillors who are actively opposed by the likes of the Surrey Hospice Society.

What was done to charities, non-profits, and the arts is beneath contempt. Reading Pete McMartin’s piece about a million dollar gala for the River Rock opening financed by BCLC, while charities like the Lions, which transport sick kids to hospitals across the province, struggle by at 1995 funding levels raises the most basic questions about what we are doing as a society, and why.

But one thing is certain: people all over the province are watching what happened in Vancouver yesterday. They are in touch with us already. We are not one group in one city.

Those who support our position are legion–they are in every community throughout this province. Now they have the tools, the model and the knowledge that BCLC can be beaten.

We look forward to a robust and vigorous debate about the appropriate role and purpose of gambling as a public financing strategy.

I may be embarassing myself but I never claimed to speak for a group. The casino workers have jobs right now. If Edgewater is losing money it is the management’s fault. They are the ones sacrificing their employees. The solution to a failing business is not to move it into a larger, subsidized location and hope it will do better there. The role of government is not to make sweetheart deals with specific businesses of questionable societal impact like casinos and the oil sands companies. A heck of a lot more than 600 would have had their lives damaged and their business affected by gambling if this project had moved forward.

@ sandy 43.

It would seem that tying gambling revenue to arts, cultural and community services groups funding is an unholy alliance? By doing so in the 1st instance history tells us human nature is bound to corrupt the initial supposed ‘good’ intentions. It didn’t take long here. Perhaps the Provincial government will terminate this relationship and put gambling income into general revenue while giving arts, cultural and community services groups a secure funding formula.

@evilfred:

The Edgewater is not losing money. The property that they currently sitting on is up for redevelopment and their lease is not being renewed.
They are trying to move to a new location but, the anti-casino crowd won’t have it.
The Edgewater has contributed monies to both municipal and provincial coffers. Ohter groups have benefited off their back, yet, when they need help, the door gets slammed.
As for your assumption that more that 600 people would have their lives effected if the casino moves or enlarges – that is speculation and to a point, fear mongering.