90.9 WBUR - Boston's NPR news station
Top Stories:
Listen News Programs Schedule
PLEDGE NOW
Now On AirListen Live

Who Should Vote On A Suffolk Downs Casino?

May 21, 2012
The MassCap horse race in Sept. 2007, at Suffolk Downs in Boston. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)

The MassCap horse race in Sept. 2007, at Suffolk Downs in Boston. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)

The debate over casinos is coming to a new neighborhood–East Boston. We’ll take a look at the latest developments on the little island and take the pulse from supporters and opponents.

Guests:

  • Stephen

    East Boston has so many promising attributes: its parks, restaurants, innovative small businesses, and hard-working newcomers, not to mention its sparkling waterfront. And yet, our isolation from mainland Boston and an ever-encroaching international airport has has burdened the city for almost a half-century. Adding a large, resort-style casino — with its traffic, crime, lower property values, higher insurance rates, and harm to local businesses — to these ongoing struggles is almost unthinkable. A casino simply doesn’t fit into the dreams many East Bostonians have for their community a decade or quarter-century from now.

    • Billbill61

      bring it on ..enough already!! start building!!!..keep mass cash here..thk you !!

  • Eastie Resident

    The casino will be in East Boston, but it will impact the entire city. Just last week, a story came out about how, after police were pulled from around New York City to patrol the area around the Aqueduct Racino in Queens, crime increased in those other neighborhoods, as well as around the Aqueduct itself. A casino will target low- and middle-income people from around Boston, so each of Boston’s neighborhoods, and especially social service agencies that serve the disenfranchised, should fear the construction of a casino within city limits.

    • Jaye

      The casino shall transform the culture of Boston. Residents of all sections of the city will pour their resources into this money cow, will drink the free liquor, will lose their meager resources, will gamble compulsively, and will be diverted to the pipe dream of easy riches. Therefore, all voters in the city need to have their voices heard at the ballot box. If you do not want casinos, then why do you have to wait for them to invade your neighborhood? Let us have a chance to nip this monster in the bud. All that glitters is not gold. Look at Atlantic City!

  • http://www.fibrowitch.net Jan Dumas

    I would like to suggest a different location for the new casino – the Filene’s hole in Down Town Crossing. Boston  needs something in that spot. Down town crossing needs a new tourism draw. It would be a great match.  The area is well served by public transportation,  so traffic would not be a problem.

    • J__o__h__n

      Casinos really revitalized Atlantic City.  The last thing downtown Boston needs is a casino.  People who don’t already live in Boston insist on driving everywhere so public transportation won’t be much of a draw unless they need it to get home after pawning their car to cover losses. 

  • Adavids2000

    Any casino in the boston area is stupid..to much gridlock and poverty..
    put the casino off of 495..lowell ..haverhill area..only accessible
    by highway..you will get nh and maine people too

Hosts Meghna Chakrabarti and Anthony Brooks introduce us to newsmakers, big thinkers and artists and bring us stories of relevance to Bostonians here and around the region. Live every weekday at 3.

  • Listen: Weekdays, 3 p.m. on 90.9 FM
  • Live Call-In: (800) 423-TALK
  • Listener Voicemail: (617) 358-0607
Most Popular
This site is best viewed with: Firefox | Internet Explorer 9 | Chrome | Safari
Reporting Copyright Infringement