by Shannon Curley

It’s Our City is a project that aims to give community activists access to a larger audience. One issue that has sparked strong community involvement has been where to place two planned casinos in Philadelphia.There has a vocal opposition to both casinos from both neighborhood associations and more professional groups like Casino-Free Philadelphia. The Sugarhouse Casino is expected to built along the Delaware River front on North Delaware Avenue. Foxwoods Casino recently announced that it plans to build in Center City, above The Gallery Mall.

Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, has come out opposed to the Foxwoods/Gallery site. Here’s our interview with Helen on Foxwoods.

It’s Our City: Why do you oppose Foxwoods Casino moving to The Gallery Mall site?

Helen Gym: First, it’s important to applaud the move to re-site Foxwoods off the waterfront. It’s recognition of the tremendous work of community and neighborhood organizations who challenged a flawed process and, at the same time, promoted a healthier vision of the waterfront and our city.

However, the re-site to the Market East location repeats the same mistakes that planted Foxwoods at the waterfront – no public process, no informed dialogue with the neighboring communities, and completely independent of a broader vision for a site that needs to be seen as the heart of Philadelphia. This site announcement also preceded any studies, any research on comparable downtown models, and any cost-benefit analysis of placing a casino smack in the middle of a commercial-residential corridor.

In addition to the flawed process, there is no doubt that this site impacts Chinatown. It is appalling that the Governor, a former Mayor of Philadelphia no less, can openly claim that the site is not in a residential neighborhood when the first houses in Chinatown are less than 50 feet away. Chinatown is one of the oldest immigrant neighborhoods in Philadelphia. There are 4,000 to 5,000 residents here, a quarter of whom are children. Many Philadelphians may know us by their favorite dim sum locale or bubble tea shop, but for thousands of Asian Americans, Chinatown is a place where their children go to school, and where they go to worship, exercise, socialize and garner a sense of community.

Finally, the decision to re-site a casino in the heart of Philadelphia is obviously bigger than Chinatown. It’s really a vision of what kind of future our city believes it ought to not only have, but control. What about the Foxwoods move is deserving of us? Decided upon in a closed door deal with millions of dollars of developer money and forced upon our citizenry by an administration whose best reason is, “Hey state law says we gotta have two casinos. What can we do?” That isn’t a new day. It’s the same old ways, with the same tired visions and the same sneaky processes.

I believe that we Philadelphians are better than that, that we can rise up in difficult economic times, and see a clearer version ahead than the junk promises of the casino culture.

What problems do you anticipate if the casino is built there?

The first problem is the impact of a 24-hour a day booze and slots parlour on surrounding communities, namely (for me at least) Chinatown. Casinos pretty much rank up there with garbage dumps and waste sewage treatment plants as well-recognized and unwelcome noxious elements for neighborhoods. Crime, unattractive complementary side businesses, and drunken behaviour are all well-documented concerns.

Despite the city’s claims of access to a public transit hub, we also know casino customers like to drive. The waterfront casinos were counting on 20,000-28,000 patrons a day. Earlier casino proposals have anticipated peak rush hour traffic to be anywhere from 1,400-1,900 cars an hour. Even if half those customers take public transportation, I can’t see how downtown with its one way streets wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the congestion, noise and pollution.

But as an Asian American what makes me angriest is the city’s positioning of a slots-parlour, whose sole purpose is to extract money from already slim pockets, next to Chinatown, which has a well-known penchant for gambling addiction. Foxwoods has been relatively open about their targeted solicitation of Asian clients, from the casino buses that go back and forth through Chinatown to the expansion of Asian games and bilingual pit crews. In a survey of Chinatown residents, the proximity of gambling next to such a vulnerable community was one of the community’s top concerns.

Even more broadly, the Mayor’s own economic advisors said an attraction of this location is that it will have a “regular customer base,” whether it’s the lunchtime crowd or nearby communities. That’s just an unacceptable way to define economic development. Now more than ever, the city needs to worry about the health and wealth of its residents rather than the profits of a casino industry,

Finally, as the city and state work actively to re-site Sugarhouse, I think all our neighborhoods and communities are at risk. If the Market East locale is defeated, it will send a strong message that these casinos have no business near residential areas

What benefits do you see with that location?

I hope it shocks us out of our complacency and gets Philadelphians active in regaining control over the direction our city is headed.

What is your organization going to do next related to the Foxwoods Casino project?

Asian Americans United’s primary mission is to inform the Chinatown community, especially non-English speakers, about this proposal. Three weeks into this announcement, the city and state have made almost no effort to do broad outreach into the community or to gather information about the impact of this proposed casino on Chinatown.

Look, the city administration, state politicians, and millions of dollars in developer money are lined up against Chinatown. We have nothing to lose by fighting this proposal. We believe the city and state will do well to remember a similar attempt eight years ago to make big promises for private corporations couched in supposed “benefits” for our city. We’ll work to see that such promises don’t come to fruition again.

Helen Gym is a Philadelphia resident, a board member of Asian Americans United and was a leader in a coalition that fought a proposed Chinatown baseball stadium in 2000. She has since founded a charter school built on what would have been that stadium’s footprint. She was named the Philadelphia Inquirer’s 2007 Citizen of the Year in December.
Asian Americans United has a petition drive underway that states its opposition to the casino