{"id":13151,"date":"2014-03-31T13:16:27","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T21:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=13151"},"modified":"2014-03-31T13:16:27","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T21:16:27","slug":"o-little-metropolis-of-bethlehem-mgm-on-the-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/o-little-metropolis-of-bethlehem-mgm-on-the-move\/","title":{"rendered":"O little metropolis of Bethlehem; MGM on the move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/launch.newsinc.com\/?type=VideoPlayer\/Single&amp;widgetId=1&amp;trackingGroup=69016&amp;siteSection=semcall&amp;videoId=25238435\" height=\"253\" width=\"450\" frameborder=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Indiscriminate dissemination by <strong>Sands Bethlehem<\/strong> of $45 free-play slot cards is having some interesting effects on <strong>Bethlehem<\/strong> itself. It&#8217;s brought about an influx of largely Chinese-American players but not all are there to play. Some pay $15 for a round-trip bus ticket, sell their card to players for $40 and pocket the rest in lieu of income. For all those for whom going to Bethlehem is a way of life, there are many others for whom it&#8217;s a means of living.<\/p>\n<p>This is detailed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcall.com\/news\/local\/bethlehem\/mc-sands-bethlehem-asian-bus-20140329,0,4289753,full.story#\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">in a superb, in-depth piece<\/a> by <strong>Matt Assad<\/strong> and <strong>Pamela Lehman<\/strong> of <em>The Morning Call<\/em>. Sands Bethlehem&#8217;s workforce boasts a strong <!--more-->number of Chinese-American dealers and other front-of-house personnel, prompting Bethlehem Mayor <strong>Robert Donchez<\/strong> to say, &#8220;<em>We&#8217;re talking about people who seem to love our city and want to buy homes here, Why wouldn&#8217;t we welcome that?<\/em>&#8221; Maybe so, but the transient population is not such a big hit with City Hall, which would like to see less of the improvised housing shown above, let alone &#8220;picking food from gardens and plucking wildlife from the canal.&#8221; Meanwhile, Sands appears to be in no danger of running short of players who will buy up free-play cards and gamble them, so it&#8217;s got no worries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Add the editorial page<\/strong> of the <em>Boston Herald<\/em> to <a href=\"http:\/\/bostonherald.com\/news_opinion\/opinion\/editorials\/2014\/03\/real_casino_confusion\" target=\"_blank\">those who can&#8217;t make sense<\/a> of Mayor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-12754\" alt=\"martinjwalsh-headshot\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot-235x300.jpg\" width=\"235\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot-235x300.jpg 235w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot-117x150.jpg 117w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot-804x1024.jpg 804w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/martinjwalsh-headshot.jpg 1650w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><\/a><strong>Martin J. Walsh<\/strong>&#8216;s rampage against the <strong>Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong>. If all he wanted was to obtain the best surrounding-community agreement for Beantown, that&#8217;s his responsibility to the voters. However, by pushing for host-community status, Walsh (<em>right<\/em>) risks losing both <strong>Wynn Boston<\/strong> and <strong>Mohegan Sun<\/strong> at the ballot box. &#8220;Walsh has a rather unusual style of negotiating,&#8221; if he&#8217;s pro-casino, opines the <em>Herald<\/em>. &#8220;Thousands of jobs are at stake, which is something we\u2019d assume Walsh would have at the top of his mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To the west<\/strong>, city officials are getting a little greedy in <strong>Longmeadow<\/strong>. They&#8217;re demanding that <strong>MGM Resorts International<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2014\/03\/longmeadow_and_mgm_springfield.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">fork over $850,000 up front plus $275,000 a year<\/a>. That&#8217;s way out of line with MGM&#8217;s other surrounding-community. The casino giant, by contrast, offered $100,000 up front, plus $200,000-$800,000 for traffic mitigation. An alternative payment structure with a cumulative value of $1.6 million was also on the table &#8212; and rejected. MGM and Longmeadow now go to arbitration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To the south<\/strong>, the lion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/washington\/breaking_ground\/2014\/03\/mgm-national-harbor-could-break-ground-as-soon-as.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">is letting no grass grow beneath its feet<\/a> at <strong>National Harbor<\/strong>. An April groundbreaking is on the table. &#8220;Our team is prepared to move dirt in the next three weeks, before the end of April,&#8221; President <strong>Lorenzo Creighton<\/strong> told the <strong>Maryland Lottery &amp; Gaming Control Commission<\/strong>. And no wonder: MGM expects this to be a huge moneymaker, so the sooner they get started the sooner they can start collecting greenbacks. Site planning and rezoning have yet to be completed. Still, the six-month incubation period from election to groundbreaking is light speed compared to <strong>Massachusetts<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local\/massachusetts\/2014\/03\/30\/panel-hold-meeting-springfield-casino-plan\/u3BaTExlJ9VgPmsJNiUycJ\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">where regulators are visiting<\/a> <strong>Springfield<\/strong> this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indiscriminate dissemination by Sands Bethlehem of $45 free-play slot cards is having some interesting effects on Bethlehem itself. It&#8217;s brought about an influx of largely Chinese-American players but not all are there to play. Some pay $15 for a round-trip &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/o-little-metropolis-of-bethlehem-mgm-on-the-move\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53,72,112,11,167,95,25,12,32,31,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13155,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151\/revisions\/13155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}