Jackpot NOT
Surprise…surprise…the Seneca Niagara Casino isn’t really having the impact it was supposed to.
From the Buffalo News…
Since opening five years ago on New Year’s Eve, the casino has become a city within a city. Today, a sprawling gambling floor is surrounded by a 604- room hotel, health spa and salon, six restaurants, four bars, a 2,200-seat events center and a variety of stores.
The 24 acres has just about everything one needs for entertainment, pleasure and nourishment, so it’s no wonder the 8 million visitors a year mainly stay inside the complex.
Outside, on the blighted streets of Niagara Falls’ inner city, many say the Seneca complex has been better at stifling growth than stimulating it.
The operative words up there are “the casino has become a city within a city”…imagine that.
I am opposed to casinos in Western New York. They generally breed more problems than they bring solutions.
That being said, I think this was a cynical and pessimistic article, typical of the type of journalism foisted on us by the Buffalo News. REGARDLESS of my disdain for casinos, I am well aware that they draw crowds and bring opportunities. All you need to do is look across the river at Niagara Falls Canada.
Not so with Niagara Falls USA. The local government, the business community and the press cannot get their arms around the potential. They cannot get their ideas out of committee much less onto the ground.
At the very least the News could have focused on ideas that been tossed about because of the new revenue stream. They could have researched other regions, similar to ours, that also have new casinos to determine if and how those regions benefited (or suffered), and the timeline that it took for change to occur. They could have discussed if casino “saturation” is happening in the U.S. and how that might be affecting the Seneca Casino. Hell, they simply could have asked if the Canadian casinos are helping to draw visitors to our casino (and area) on the U.S. side of the border. Instead, they gave the upside potential what, a couple paragraphs?
Worse, the article begs the question (but does not answer): “What became of the $23 million this year – and the many millions of dollars in years past – that the casino has paid to the city? Don’t you think that if you suddenly had $75M or $100M of BRAND NEW REVENUE that you’d be able to show a little more for it than the convention center upgrade (much of which was paid for by New York State)? How come the News is up in arms over the Casino being “No Jackpot for Falls” but not about where all the money’s gone? They seemed pretty quick to blame the casino for the lack of development off the Seneca Nation property; isn’t that the city’s responsibility?
If I were a city planner and REGARDLESS of my position on casinos I would be embracing, not denigrating, the Seneca Casino. At every opportunity I would be talking to their management and asking “How can we do more with the area? What should we do first? What should we do next? What would draw in even more tourism? How can we remove stumbling blocks?” At every opportunity I’d be calling the News and TELLING them about the great things that the casino provides today and will provide in the future. I’d be playing up this golden goose as much as I possibly could because after all, if I can help make them immensely successful then at least I too reap some benefit. To do otherwise is cutting off my own nose.
Based on the article – and because of the lack of references I have no idea if the article is the truth – I would say that Niagara Falls USA has done little constructive planning and is already pointing at the Seneca casino as a cause, rather than a solution, to its problems. The News is more than willing to sensationalize the downside of this because, well, because that’s what it does best.
Shame on both the City of Niagara Falls and the Buffalo News for allowing this article to appear in the form in which it appeared.
I apologize for the long-winded comment but I’m really pissed off about how our media continues to beat down on an already demoralized community, which merely feeds that cycle of “it’ll never work” pessimism. The casino is here. There is clearly so much opportunity to be gained, and we should be taking advantage of it at every turn.
BBD
[...] the Seneca Casino and the Buffalo News What started out as my comment to this article at In da Buff’s blog became a manifesto, and is reproduced in its entirety here. I am [...]
BBD,
N Falls is really a great example of what is wrong with upstate…how could any community located next to one of the natural wonders of the world not prosper is beyond me…
A big difference between the casinos placed in NF Cananda and NF USA is that the casino in Canada was put in place to bolster and already thriving tourist destination and make it better…the casino in the US was placed to become an economic engine for NF USA to redevelop an area which has been pretty dead for awhile…
No need to apologize about the long winded response…you bring up some valid points about how the story was presented.