Health & Fitness
Casino Coming -- Who You Gonna Call...?
The Rohnert Park City Council's has enacted regulations to protect the town from the results of having a casino in the neighborhood. But have the council's actions actually benefited the casino?
Just as all the backbiting over the new casino has started to subside, the Rohnert Park City Council comes along with a new set of regulations that give proof to some of the concerns that people had before the casino ever got underway.
The new restrictions imposed by the council are good for an initial 45 days and include moratoriums on new
- Pawn Shops
- Adult Entertainment Enterprises
- Check Cashing Shops
- Cyber Cafes
- Electronic Message Centers.
According to assistant city manager Darrin Jenkins, some possible outcomes are defeated gamblers being ready to cash checks at steep interest rates or hock personal items for cash so they can gamble.
Jenkins also notes in his report that visitors to casinos often seek outside entertainment activities, like visiting strip clubs and massage parlors. Cats and dogs, living together! Mass hysteria!
Who you gonna call?
Call Darrin Jenkins and the Rohnert Park City Council, who have had over a year to think this through and could have come up with such a report before approving the casino.
I wonder if the city council's concerns have only served to give the Graton Rancheria some additional advantages when launching their casino?
It's possible to see a connection between check cashing stores (Rohnert Park already has 3) and pawn shops, and perhaps more massage parlors wanting to cater to casino visitors. But why would a university town like Rohnert Park want to impose on new cyber cafes, or electronic message centers (could Western Union really be such a threat?)
The answer could be found in recent headlines with cyber cafes in Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa being raided by police due to illegal online gambling, which, of course, could take some of the action away from the new Graton Rancheria casino.
Apparently, not even the lure of being in the Wine Country will stop these sordid types.
That said, maybe the City Council should impose a restriction on the casino that it fund a place for local meetings of Gamblers Anonymous. Or perhaps the owners of some addiction recovery facilities will see Rohnert Park as ripe for a new location, thus helping sew up our high office vacancy rate.
I think it a safe bet to say that this will not happen any time soon.
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