Novelty Wearing Off Fast In Riverside

Novelty Wearing Off Fast In Riverside

The Gazette article isn't linkable, but this much tells the story:

The new Riverside casino saw its gaming revenue drop 13.6 percent and its attendance decline by 19.9 percent in October compared with its first full month of operation. Chief Executive Officer Dan Kehl of the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort said he expected the numbers to go down after the first month as the ``newness'' wore off. ``We're tracking about where we thought we'd be,'' he said. ``It may have been a little bit lighter (in October). There were a couple of days ... that knocked us a little bit off of our projections, but nothing we're concerned about.''

As I've said so many times: the gambling pie is only so big. Opening more casinos doesn't expand the pool of gamblers, it merely cuts the pie into thinner and thinner slices. There are people (like me) who wouldn't go to a casino if it were across the street. This isn't job growth, it's a temporary redistribution.

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Also on the local front, IC City council meets with legislators:

The Iowa City Council discussed changing the property tax system as a way to generate more money for city services.

Good point there: perhaps the new trifecta team of Culver, Gronstal and Murphy will look at that rather than regressive sales taxes.

Another topic, introduced by University of Iowa City Council liaison Austin Baeth, was protecting tenants from landlords who wrongfully retain deposit money.

Other legislative priorities listed by City Council include:

Advocating for increased funding for the Iowa State Housing Trust Fund to make affordable housing more available.

Maintaining control over local cable franchise to better endorse public television.

Giving city government the power to increase its hotel/motel tax.

Allowing home rule so local governments can determine their own public smoking regulation.

Eliminating the tax break for licenses on pickup trucks that originally was intended to benefit farmers.

Doesn't look like a sensible, enforcable, consistent drinking age of 18 was on the agenda.

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Quick and dirty links:

MyDD looks at the excessive credit given Rahm Emanuel for last week's win with the funniest post of the year.

Election Central has the rundown on 10 US House races still in the too close to call zone.

Old music in new packages from a couple of my obsessions: Neil Young finally starts to release the archives with a 1970 live set and Oasis does the greatest hits thing in odd fashion: two CDs running just 87 minutes and denying the existence of Be Here Now. No new songs but the upside is Noel Gallagher picked the tracks himself so you get a good sense of what he thinks is his best work.