Casino bill off the table – at least for this year
The Virginia Senate Finance Committee voted on Feb. 6 to carry over for the next year a bill that would have allowed the development of a casino in Tysons. That means the General Assembly won’t act on the legislation at least until 2025.
That will provide more time for research on the impact of a potential casino in Fairfax County.
The vote in the Finance Committee was 13-2 in favor of carrying the bill (SB 675) to the 2025 General Assembly.
Related story: Bill to allow casino in Tysons on hold
Among senators from Northern Virginia, Dave Marsden (Annandale), who introduced the bill, Adam Ebbin (Alexandria), Barbara Favola (Arlington), and Jennifer Boysko (Herndon) all voted yes. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (Mount Vernon) voted no. The committee rejected a measure by Boysko to hold the bill indefinitely.
“I feel the Senate Finance Committee did the right thing by saying we need to take a step back and understand all the details of the proposal,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeffrey McKay.
“We only learned many of those details in dribbles as the bill was sorted out and after it was introduced, and we still do not have all of the information we need,” McKay said. That includes the potential revenue from a casino and the impact on the community and traffic.
Community groups in Tysons and Reston and thousands of residents expressed their opposition to the casino bill. About 400 people attended a Feb. 3 town hall on the proposal convened by Boysko.
SB 675 would add Fairfax County to the list of localities eligible to have a casino, but it specified a location along the Silver Line. The other localities (Portsmouth, Danville, Bristol, Norfolk, and Richmond) had asked the General Assembly to grant them the authority to have a casino. McKay made it clear that “at no point in this process did I or the Board of Supervisors request the authority to build a casino in Fairfax County.”
Marsden gets re-elected and this the first thing off his desk.
It is true that the Fairfax Board of Supervisors did not ask for a casino in Tysons, however, if Chairman McKay and the other Supervisors would have firmly stated that they did not want a casino in Tysons, it would have helped in having SB 675 passed by indefinitely. Instead, Chairman McKay sent a letter stated that the Supervisors objected to the “process” that Senator Marsden was following in proposing the casino.
In his presentation of the bill, Senator Marsden stated numerous times that the Board of Supervisors did not object to the casino, they only objected to the process, which he thought was a positive sign.
I personally think that it sets a bad precedent for a Senator to propose a casino in an area which he/she does not represent. The other casinos approved in Virginia were requested by the representatives of the area in which the casino was to be located.
If SB 675 passes next year, that would mean that there will be a county-wide referendum to determine if there should be a casino in Tysons. It is possible that the residents of Tyson could end up with a casino that they did not request, approved in a referendum by residents who do not live anywhere near Tysons. That does not seem right to me.
Why make those people who want to go out to Casinos have to travel a long way and time to other Casinos for fun and relaxation? Why?
casinos are trashy
SB 675 is a scourge on ALL the citizens of FFX Co. If a casino is built, the owners will become more wealthy and the rest of us will be left holding the bag for all the affiliated expenses of extreme traffic woes; parking nightmares; huge increases in policing expenses to combat human trafficking, prostitution, robberies, theft, increased car jacking, drunk and disorderly and other casino related crime; plus unsavory atmosphere for other successful established area businesses who do not want to be located anywhere near a casino; loss of RE values for nearby properties, etc. WHY would FFX Co. supervisors EVER put us, the taxpayers, in an obviously abhorrent, negative position??? Supervisors should pledge NOW to take NO MORE Casino connected ‘donations’ from developers and squarely come out AGAINST any casino in FFX Co.
Good grief lady you left out pestilence. , raining frogs, and hoards of locusts
I think the Capital One Theatre has given us all the positive effects that you can get from a casino, without all the added crime that comes with the gambling part of it. People should be happy that we have that theater and meeting and convention space, but don’t have to pay all the extra $$ for police to deal with the shady side of a casino.
You folks are watching too many old AMC movies where the Mafia controlled gambling.