Community Building

Do-It-Yourself

 

Want to help keep slots out of neighborhoods where people live, work and play?

Find out more and join the many Philadelphians trying to keep this predatory industry out of our city:

MEDIA COVERAGE

We have achieved one of the major goals of our campaign. We stopped Foxwoods from building a slots parlor in the heart of our city. But the struggle to stop slots parlors from opening in any neighborhood in Phialdelphia continues.

Foxwoods Ordered Back to the Waterfront

NO SLOTS SPOT
Grand Opening & Anti-Casino Circus
was held on Thursday, June 25 at lunchtime

Media Mobilizing Project has photos of the event here.

Taking Our Message to Harrisburg:
NO CASINOS IN PHILADELPHIA!

Listen to the comments made by members of the No Casino in the Heart of Our City Coalition:

A Question of Place
by Debbie Wei
November 15, 2008

From AsianWeek: The Voice of Asian America
http://www.asianweek.com/2008/11/15/a-question-of-place/

Philadelphians told City Hall
NO CASINO IN THE HEART OF THE CITY!
Saturday, November 1st

Chinatown tells City Hall and Foxwoods
NO CASINO IN CHINATOWN!!! on Oct 9th

Watch video coverage of the public hearing. By Gary San Angel.

 

Anti-Casino Struggle

 

No Casino in the Heart of Our City Coalition

Over 50 organizations have joined a citywide Coalition that calls upon City and Civic Leaders to Stop the Predatory Casino Industry

from the Press Conference on February 18, 2009. By Ron Stanford

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Why We Oppose Slots Parlors in Philadelphia

Casinos don’t belong close to homes!
Foxwoods and Sugarhouse Casinos would be less than 50 feet from people’s homes. No casino has ever been built this close to urban neighborhoods anywhere in the United States – with good reason. State law permits unlimited free alcohol service 24 hours a day at the casinos. Addiction, crime, and all the negative impacts associated with gambling (bankruptcies, divorces, and suicides) are worse the closer they are to homes and schools.

Casinos are bad for local businesses and when our businesses suffer our workers suffer too!
Casinos are selfish businesses – their goal is to keep people in their building as long as possible to keep them betting. That’s why they offer free buffets and drinks. As a result, they starve surrounding local restaurants and bars of business. In Atlantic City, the number of independent restaurants dropped from 48 to 16 just within a year after the casino opening. Within just four years of the casinos’ arrival, one-third of the city’s retail businesses had closed. Foxwoods is planning on making over $1 million/day; the money that our community members lose at the slots is money not being spent in local businesses.

Casinos profit from gambling addiction.
Gambling addiction is not just a by-product of casinos. Gambling addiction is a core part of casinos’ business: 27% to 55% of casino revenues come from problem or pathological gamblers. Gambling addiction hurts not only the addicts but their families as well. Studies show that 20–25% of spouses of gambling addicts are abused. Child abuse and neglect also go up in gambling addicts’ families. But we don’t need studies to show us this. Many of us have seen with our own eyes how gambling addiction destroys families.

Casinos unfairly target our community
Foxwoods in Connecticut actively markets to Asians and estimates that at least one-third of its 40,000 customers per day are Asian. Our City government should not support this targeting of our community. We are asking our City leaders to stop doing the bidding of an industry that profits by impoverishing its clientele and that thrives on pushing addiction. Casinos in Philadelphia serves the Foxwoods and Sugarhouse owners' interests; it does not serve our public interest.

This is not a done deal. It is not too late to fight it.

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Dig in for the Long Fight

We will challenge them every step of the way!

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
– Frederick Douglass, 1857

We are readying ourselves for a long struggle to save Chinatown and the city itself by constant vigilance, action, testament, and witness. While we continue to show up in large numbers to make our voices heard, some may lose heart and hope as they watch our elected officials squander their public responsibility by pushing forward with the plan to put casinos on Market Street. But we need to stay in for the long haul. And we need to know that we are effective and critical.

Our voices do matter. In the court of public opinion, we have scored major victories. Officials are feeling the pressure of our outcry. It is the public that we are seeking to influence, because it is they who will ultimately hold these officials accountable.

It is also our responsibility to inform others. Not just about the threat to Chinatown. Not just about our own history. We are now seeking to tear the mask off the casino industry and have them recognized for the predators they are.

We are asking our City leaders to stop doing the bidding of an industry that profits by impoverishing its clientele and that thrives on pushing addiction. Casinos in the heart of Philadelphia serves Foxwoods' and Sugarhouse’s interests; it does not serve our public interest.

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