EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA CITIZENS AGAINST GAMBLING

EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
CITIZENS AGAINST GAMBLING
430 East Lancaster Avenue E25 Saint Davids, PA 19087

PRESS RELEASE

EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA CITIZENS AGAINST GAMBLING OPPOSES PROPOSAL FOR TABLE GAMES AT VALLEY FORGE

January 6, 2012 1:00 PM | Contact: Press Office | 610-688-9471 | noUMgambling@aol.com
www.CasinoFreeUS.com

Valley Forge, PA -- With less than a month’s notice, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has scheduled a public input hearing to be held on a proposal by the developers of a Valley Forge mini-casino to include table games.

Eastern Pennsylvania Citizens Against Gambling (EPCAG) formally opposes the proposal to include table games at the applied-for Upper Merion mini-casino. The table games proposal is vastly premature and inappropriate. The Gaming Board is treating the proposal as a worthy matter even though appeals of their grant of this slots license continue, and the facility is not open nor built. The financial background of this operation has never been fully revealed, nor shown to be in compliance with law. This facility may never open, if appeals are properly judged. Even if the facility opened, it is an untried operation, and should operate for five years or more before table games are attempted.

EPCAG recommends that all members of the public speak their mind to the Gaming Board at the hearing. Small businesses should note that business is not generated by casinos. Rather, the money is siphoned off from other businesses, to gamblers’ immediate needs. This fact is kept secret by casino interests, who like to paint pictures of economic boon for everyone in the county. This is false. Even restaurants suffer, and usually bars do too.

      The hearing will be held on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 10:00 AM BUT REGISTRATION CLOSES AT 12:00 NOON ON MONDAY, January 9, 2012. The hearing location is the Crowne Plaza Valley Forge Hotel, located at 260 Mall Boulevard, King of Prussia, PA 19406. Directions can be found at http://www.cpvalleyforge.com/directions.asp .    The simple registration can be completed online at
http://gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov/?pr=212 or see the link at the Gaming Board web page http://gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov .

       The casino money pit looming for Upper Merion would be the fourth Philadelphia area casino.   Five years ago, no casinos existed in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvanians had hundreds of millions more for spending money, on businesses that add something worthwhile to society, rather than legalized theft. Prior to this debacle there was no monkey ready to breathe down our neck, or the necks of a substantial portion of our neighbors and co-workers. This travesty is now known to be nothing more than a successful lobby effort by the casino industry, in order to line their pockets, and little else. Harrisburg is now preparing a dagger for the Valley Forge region. They callously approve of this additional casino – smack in the middle of an enormous family-oriented region with a high percentage of churchgoing, God-respecting citizens, respected colleges and relatively moral-minded high schools, and now they are preparing to add insult to injury by permitting table gaming.

       The process that occurred for approval of the license for Valley Forge was focused on slot machines. Table games became possible towards the end, when the legislature amended the law, but the record was not upgraded.   Now is the time to remind the Board that the process was geared towards a resort-oriented slot casino, and that residents do not want casino interests re-molding the license into a full fledged casino, and they haven’t even met the requirements. Worse, issues ranging from traffic concerns to the realities of blight and ethical and moral degeneration, which are likely to be worsened by table games, are inherent, and yet the license process alarmingly tunes out these concerns. It is a fact that an enormous number of people living near or visiting Upper Merion Township regularly, will now be headed for habituation or addiction, or unwanted depletion of theirs and their family’s reserves, because the State government has refused to acknowledge the realities of their casino boondoggle. The fact of the blight on savings and quality of life on local townships by casinos is a truth – long since Rendell and his cronies’ Gaming Act, this fact still hasn’t been admitted, nor covered by the media. Casinos are predatory, on top of being implicitly bad for a considerable portion of the nearby populace.

      The EPCAG appeal from the Supreme Court’s final decision regarding Valley Forge remains mired in a voluminous effort by numerous entities to end the appeal, designate the appeal as illicit or unfounded, and slow and detract from the appeal, so as to prejudice it when it reaches the Judges’ chambers.   The Supreme Court decision includes unmistakable error, especially in deciding that the Valley Forge hotel and convention facility is a “resort.” Essentially this was based on the presence of a swimming pool and a diminutive health room, whereas the law intends the “resort” option for true resort facilities and such, with golf or other vacation amenities. Two Supreme Court justices dissented from the opinion for this reason and elaborated in their opinions, on why the convention center/hotel could never be considered a resort. EPCAG’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court runs the gamut from that “resort” issue, to the Gaming Board and State Assembly’s continuing ruse on the public portraying “addiction” assistance as a proper and viable solution for the predatory tactics utilized by casino operators, in the face of real life habituation of untold thousands who would never call themselves “addicted,” and tens of thousands more who have spent savings, college savings, and all other manner of ruinous binge spending.

      EPCAG recently also appealed the Gaming Board’s approval of Valley Forge’s plan for access by customers, claiming that the access plan does not conform to the mandate in the law that category 3 resort slots licenses be limited to customers of the licensee and not the general public. See the Press Release

     For a copy of EPCAG’s objections to the access plan, table games, or the appeals filed in the Commonwealth Court, and United States Supreme Court, contact the above.

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EPCAG is a community organization which opposes all infusion of gambling into Pennsylvania and actively opposes any applications or upgrades for casinos in King of Prussia, Bushkill Falls, Philadelphia, Gettysburg, and any location where gambling is proposed or existent in the Keystone State. EPCAG opposes slot parlor licenses granted in Pennsylvania, notably Mount Pocono, Philadelphia, Chester, Wilkes-Barre, and Bethlehem.

EPCAG persistently argues that the imposition of gambling upon the Northeast region and U.S. by government is unethical, and benefits only a very few, while causing serious harm, and, rather than adding to the community, creates absolutely no growth in these great cities' and towns' economies.

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