{"id":14557,"date":"2014-09-15T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14557"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:00:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T18:00:43","slug":"im-poorer-than-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/im-poorer-than-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m poorer than you are’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kennedy\"<\/a>That’s the argument being reiterated\u00a0in New York State<\/strong>, as impoverished cities and their would-be casino saviors fight for over one or (more likely) two casino licenses. Case in point: Newburgh<\/strong>, where Mayor Judy Kennedy<\/strong>\u00a0(left<\/em>) has become a media celebrity of sorts in her crusade to bring a casino to town by badmouthing local economic conditions. The New York Times<\/em> describes Newburgh thusly<\/a>:\u00a0Boarded up rowhouses and vacant storefronts line the streets north of City Hall and Broadway, the city\u2019s main thoroughfare. Drug dealers rule some corners. The sound of gunfire occasionally echoes through the streets<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Damn, it makes Las Vegas<\/strong> sound bucolic\u00a0by comparison.<\/p>\n

New York’s casino-licensing process has fallen into a now-familiar fugue in which cities and towns take turns trying to out poor-mouth each other. Those in the Catskills<\/strong> are particularly vigorous in painting themselves as worse off than Orange County<\/strong>, where Newburgh is located. Only Genting Group<\/strong>‘s proposed Resorts World Sterling Forest Resort<\/strong> is south of Route 17, the main turnoff to the Catskills and thus — so the argument runs — more of a serious competitive threat than Orange County projects sited north of Route 17.<\/p>\n

\"Montreign\"<\/a>Strangely, the casino competition has set off a war of words between Genting and its subsidiary, Empire Resorts<\/strong>, backer of the Montreign<\/strong> project in the Catskills. Empire threatens to cut its level of investment in Montreign from $450 million to $277 million if Newburgh or two other sites in Orange County are chosen. That number would go down to $172 million is Sterling Forest or two other southerly sites get a nod from the state.<\/p>\n

When casino expansion was voted in, Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/strong> (D) took a victory lap in the Catskills. Visiting Sullivan County<\/strong> he proclaimed,\u00a0\u201cThis is a game changer.\u00a0I think it\u2019s going to fundamentally change the economy of the Catskills.\u201d We’ll see if he’s a man of his word.<\/p>\n

* Up in Dorchester<\/strong>, the casino-licensing process for Massachusetts<\/strong> ground back into action this week. As the Washington Times<\/em> summarized<\/a>, “Overall, [Steve<\/strong>] Wynn<\/strong>\u2019s project won high marks for its vision of a luxury resort that \"Wynn<\/a>would appeal to a wealthy international clientele and leverage Boston<\/strong>\u2019s reputation as a tourist destination to create greater economic activity in the region.” Wynn Resorts<\/strong> has to be banking that such praise — and sturdier financing — will ultimately carry it to victory over Mohegan Sun<\/strong>‘s rival (and overwhelmingly leveraged) package.<\/p>\n

Today came news that Mohegan Sun will up the amount of equity<\/a> in its financing. Wynn also bent to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong>‘s requests, to a degree. It increased the level of its mitigation to Boston from $46 million to $63 million. According to the Boston Globe<\/em>, “Wynn, however, rejected other proposed conditions related to traffic, including proposed fines on the developer if traffic counts exceeded certain targets.” There’s no word yet of Wynn’s reaction to MGC’s demand that it change its hotel design on short notice — an edict whose absurdity beggars description. The MGC handled this issue much better when awarding a slot parlor license, when it opted for a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward the designs presented it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the argument being reiterated\u00a0in New York State, as impoverished cities and their would-be casino saviors fight for over one or (more likely) two casino licenses. Case in point: Newburgh, where Mayor Judy Kennedy\u00a0(left) has become a media celebrity of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,14,120,112,167,101,25,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14557"}],"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=14557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14560,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14557\/revisions\/14560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}