All bets are off for Rob Ford’s casino for Toronto, at least until the fall.
On Monday, the mayor’s executive committee turned down the temperature on one of the city’s most divisive debates and voted to commission a staff report on the pros and cons of setting up a permanent gambling complex in the city.
The report is due back in October, and while it will effectively take casinos off council’s agenda for the next few months, Ford made clear that he’s not giving up on trying to attract a Vegas-style resort to Toronto.
“I believe it [would be] a huge victory for the city of Toronto to land a huge resort, like MGM or whoever,” Ford told the committee, referring to the casino company that has been lobbying the city. “I think it’s time we get more information.”
Councillor Adam Vaughan, who had been seeking to ensure that no casino be built in Toronto without first holding a referendum, also welcomed the study. He predicted it would vindicate his position that a major gambling facility in downtown Toronto is “an insane proposition.”
“It’s a bad idea for downtown, it’s a bad idea for the waterfront,” Vaughan said. “I think the study will show why that is.”
The comprehensive report, to be conducted in consultation with Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, will identify potential sites for a gambling facility, provide an overview of the casino experience of other jurisdictions, and examine the social, economic, and tourism impacts of opening a gaming complex in Toronto.
No matter what the report concludes, Monday’s meeting showed just how difficult it could be for Ford to turn his casino dream into a reality. Not only is he facing fierce resistance from many opposition councillors, but members of his own executive expressed doubts that the benefits of a gambling complex would outweigh the costs. One, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, voted against even studying the idea.
Perhaps more difficult for the mayor will be balancing the need to protect existing Toronto gaming facilities against the demands of suitors like MGM.
The mayor’s preferred site for a new casino is Woodbine racetrack, which sits in Ford’s old ward of Etobicoke North and has been in crisis since the province announced plans to pull the plug on its slot machines. At Monday’s meeting Woodbine Entertainment Group’s Jane Holmes told the committee that a gaming facility anywhere else in the city would likely cannibalize the racetrack and lead to its closure, which would be a political blow to the suburb-boosting mayor.
But MGM Resorts vice president of public affairs Alan Feldman, who gave a flashy presentation to the executive, said his company won’t consider building in Etobicoke because it’s not close enough to business and tourist areas.
“We wouldn’t [develop at Woodbine]” Feldman told reporters. “It’s too far away and it doesn’t give you the energy of the business district that you need.”
In what will come as welcome news for Torontonians who have been campaigning to keep Ontario Place family-friendly, Feldman also said the former amusement park is not on his company’s shortlist of potential development sites.
“Ontario Place is I think frankly a bit of a distraction,” he said. “Leave Ontario Place just the way it is.”
Exhibition Place, which already has convention and entertainment infrastructure, is MGM’s preferred site “at first blush,” said Feldman, followed by the Port Lands.
Feldman estimated that a waterfront casino-resort similar to the massive CityCentre entertainment complex in Las Vegas would net Toronto $3 to $5 billion in investment from MGM, 10,000 construction jobs, 10,000 more long-term positions, and $1 billion in additional tourism revenue.
Ford said a casino could provide the city with $100 million a year.
The province would be entitled to 75 per cent of any gaming proceeds, while the city’s take would be roughly 2 per cent.
The tantalizing numbers dangled by Ford and MGM were tempered by deputations like that of Rob Simpson, founding CEO of the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre. Simpson said research shows one in 20 casino customers are problem gamblers, and that these customers, who often spiral into debt and depression, account for 35 per cent of all gambling revenues.
“Thirty-five per cent of that revenue will come from residents of Toronto who are being harmed,” he said.
