THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411180010
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Having failed to win the Virginia Racing Commission's nod as the site for the state's only pari-mutuel horse-race track (New Kent County gained that), Portsmouth City Hall now has set its cap for a riverboat-casino/convention/entertainment complex on its waterfront.
Riverboat casinos must first navigate some tricky straits to enter Virginia waters. Norfolk Del. Jerrauld C. Jones has twice proposed legislation in the General Assembly to bring riverboat casinos to the state. He will try again next year.
That the Norfolk Democrat encountered resistance is understandable. Gambling is controversial. Opponents raise religious, moral, political and economic objections to it.
But gambling also is pervasive. Tens of millions of Americans gamble unlawfully and lawfully, privately and publicly. Legalized gambling is seen by more and more voters as a way to ease the tax burden and to boost state and local economies. Even many non-gamblers reason that gambling should be legalized to allow society to reap some of its material benefits.
So state lotteries are commonplace. And casinos are multiplying. Riverboat casinos may well sail into Virginia - most conspicuously into Hampton Roads and Richmond - though some states have recently rejected them. Hampton Roads shipyards would bid for riverboat contracts. Hampton Roads businesses and professional firms would provide goods and services.
A modest fleet of riverboat casinos - no more than 14 riverboats are proposed for the commonwealth - in Hampton Roads would blend into an already lively tourist scene. Portsmouth's leaders seek more than riverboat casinos alone. They aspire to a hotel, a convention center, an amphitheater and a park clustered near a riverboat pier.
Perhaps they aspire unrealistically, but the potentially powerful revenue stream from riverboat casinos stimulates similar dreams - in Norfolk, Hampton and Richmond, too.
But a word of caution: Although riverboat casinos are generators of economic activity and contributors of tax dollars, they are no cure-all for the financial stress of state and local governments, no more than state lotteries are. Legislators and voters who believe otherwise court disappointment. by CNB