The history of Ottawa’s plight to host a casino may be a short narrative, but it’s packed with drama and controversy.
Local health centres and community organizations have called on council to shoot down the gaming hall.
And now that Mayor Jim Watson has taken a downtown location off the table, some businesses are upset, as Watson had previously said that all sites would be considered.
Watson himself originally endorsed the idea of a casino in the city’s core. But, in a letter to council members last week, the mayor said the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation would only allow one casino in each “gaming zone” – meaning the city would lose slots at the Rideau Carleton Raceway if it established a casino elsewhere.
Watson therefore wants council members to back the racetrack as “the only acceptable location for an expanded gaming facility in Ottawa.”
Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk has criticized Watson for flip-flopping on the issue. Melnyk is touting Scotiabank Place as a good home for the gaming hall, while the Sparks Street Business Improvement Area, wanting to attract more customers, would like to see the casino downtown.
But Watson has “supporters” in the Centretown Community Health Centre and, according to a poll administered by the Centretown Citizens Community Association, many local residents. They’d rather see no casino at all, but believe changing the locale is the right thing to do.
The CCCA’s poll found that residents overwhelmingly oppose the idea of Ottawa hosting a new casino, with the majority responding that “public health and social costs such as gambling addiction will be too significant.”
But most respondents said that if a casino were to come to town, it should be at the Rideau Carleton, away from the city’s core.
“If what the mayor wants comes to pass, we think it’s a step in the right direction,” says Jeff Morrison, board president of the Centretown Community Health Centre.
The health centre’s biggest concern since the casino was first proposed has been the question of increased access to gambling. But moving the casino to a place where there is already a gaming facility mitigates this problem.
“The easier you make it to access gambling,” he says, “the more the likelihood that problem gambling issues will arise.”
Problem gambling impacts certain groups more than others, with seniors, urban aboriginals, and young men being among the most vulnerable. “When you look at the population of downtown,” he says, “those are the kind of populations we have there.”
The health centre launched a petition on June 10, calling on city council members to oppose the casino expansion.
Members of Ottawa’s business community, as expected, have a very different opinion of Watson’s new stance. Some are now lamenting that, if the mayor has his way, they won’t benefit from the hot upcoming attraction, which could be a major draw for tourists.
Les Gagne, executive director of the Sparks Street BIA, describes Ottawa as a “very passive tourist destination,” but says a downtown casino might have helped liven up the city’s core.
Ideally, says Gagne, Sparks Street would be home to the new gaming hall, but any downtown location would satisfy him.
“It certainly would have given us a real neat opportunity to bring a lot of vitality and excitement to downtown,” he says. “But also people that wouldn’t otherwise come downtown would be given an incentive to do so.”
Gagne says the city’s core quiets down after public servants leave for the day, but a new casino would bring in a steady stream of people downtown after work and on weekends.
But this idea of an influx of cash and new customers isn’t realistic, according to Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street Business Improvement Association, who says the organization didn’t want the casino in its neighbourhood.
“It isn’t the draw that it once might have been, these casinos. They’ve gone very down market,” she says. “They are not attracting tourists. They have lost the cachet.”
Casinos, actually, tend to “suck all the money from the area they’re in,” she says, as patrons don’t usually visit local merchants – they just spend their money in the casino. “There are no spillover benefits.”
Watson hasn’t gotten his way just yet. His new motion supporting the racetrack still has to be approved by the finance and economic development committee in July.