Naperville is Illinois’ version of New York City, it never sleeps. Always one controversy after the other. The next local drama on the docket appears to be whether Naperville’s council will approve video gaming coming to town.
Maybe the more apt question should be, how can’t Naperville’s council approve video gaming? Just a couple years ago some of these same council members voted to approve marijuana stores coming to town.
On the surface, video gaming raises many of the same policy questions marijuana stores presented.
Like marijuana, video gaming is nearly unanimously agreed to be an unhealthy habit that can lead to serious problems down the road for some users. Nonetheless, council approved marijuana coming to town anyway because:
1. It made no sense not to allow marijuana stores as they are already operating on our borders. Well so are video poker operators – Aurora and many other suburbs allow them. In fact, you can already gamble away on your phone and computer from your home in Naperville.
2. It was argued that people will smoke pot whether it’s legal or not. Obviously the same is very much true as to gambling.
3. We needed the valuable tax revenue marijuana stores would generate. Well video gaming too would also be a huge source of tax revenue.
4. The negative habit of marijuana use is safer when the use and sales are regulated. Is gambling safer when done through criminal enterprise?
5. Keeping marijuana stores out of downtown and regulating its signage was suggested as ways to mitigate their impact. The same could all be done with gaming.
Undoubtedly when this gaming issue inevitably comes before council, we will hear from doctors and counselors saying not to allow it. They will say it’s unhealthy and leads to social problems.
Well countless medical professionals opined to Naperville that marijuana use was terrible and not to allow it here. Council approved the stores anyway.
Council will likely hear from the families of gambling addicts who will recant the devastating effects gambling addiction has on families.
Well Naperville heard from many families of drug addicts, some of whom lost family to drug addiction and who repeatedly said their loved ones addiction started with marijuana use. Council approved marijuana stores anyway.
The Watchdog is torn on gaming. In most cases it’s harmless bar room entertainment that will raise tax revenue that could offset our tax levy. What the Watchdog is not torn over is the absurdity it would be to turn away gaming but to continue to allow the marijuana stores to crank out marijuana en masse to our residents.
The Watchdog is speaking to you Pat Kelly and Benny White!
You both voted to allow marijuana stores despite their nearly identical policy questions. The difference between the two issues appears only to be the stakeholders pushing either initiative.
The liberal activists who support Benny and Patrick really love their marijuana….poker not as much. Will politics be the difference maker?
It will be an interesting tell as to what either councilman are motivated by….policy or politics.
The Watchdog throws out this idea to the anti-marijuana crowd, if council throws out the video gamers…come to council with a petition to throw out the marijuana stores. It would be comedic gold to watch councilmen try and justify supporting one operation but not the other.
Government cannot change human nature but it can influence. Gambling, smoking cannabis, drinking, cigarettes or any such “vice” are adult consensual actions. As prohibition demonstrated the government making drinking illegal did not work but only served to make ordinary citizens law breakers and criminal organizations stronger and richer. I believe that the solution lies in accepting human nature and to legalize, tax and regulate these “vices”. This approach acknowledges the truth that people are going to do what they want to do, but provides financial disincentives to discourage this behavior, while providing revenue to government instead of criminal elements. Making something legal does not make an individual make gamble or smoke pot, this remains a personal decision. As CCWD knows cannabis dispensaries have generated millions of dollars of local tax revenue which otherwise would have been lost to other communities or black market. I agree that video gaming should be handled the same way as cannabis. Legalize, tax and regulate.
Claiming the city should allow video gambling because it allowed cannabis is a red herring argument. Drinking is bad for your health and so is smoking, yet these have been legal for over a century. Using this argument now, by anyone, including the WD, that advocated against cannabis shows either their hypocrisy or political bias.
As to video poker, the city is currently involved in a legal case against the person who is trying to open such a business in unincorporated Naperville off of Ogden. Allowing video poker in the city would torpedo this case which the city has invested significant city assets in.
As to allowing video poker in the downtown area, again, this would go against the considerable efforts the city has made to prevent anything not viewed as “family friendly” from operating in the downtown area. The city has historically denied requests for liquor stores, CDB oil shops, cannabis shops, etc. in the downtown area, so reversing course on this standard would open the floodgates for all sorts of businesses downtown that residents have indicated they don’t want downtown.
Absent from an otherwise excellent introduction to this controversy by the ‘Dog is the context for this sudden legislative imperative. To wit- DuPage County has stolen a march on our taxation blitzkrieg with the recent discovery of the (Di)Vest and Case Gaming District TIF and Zoning Initiative which sees a tiny economic enclave of landlocked unincorporated DuPage County at Vest and Case Streets in North Naperville magically transformed into a gambling free-fire zone. County being first to market with their version of additional taxation on the poor makes everything Naperville does look cheap and like slapping lipstick on the pig after it already became bacon.
Anyone commenting on the validity of this idea should commit to having a “Gaming Premises” open up next to their business in downtown Naperville. We know exactly where all these tax-friendly “legalize, tax, regulate, and laugh at how clever we are to pay for everything from those nasty people who are paying for their need to sin” are going to get placed in your clever little social engineering abweichende unmoralische Forschungen. Dump all the unspeakables like the Vape Stores, Gun Uber Marts, Pawn Shops, Rooms by the Hour AirBnB’s, and “Massage Parlours wink wink” in the North. You know you want to.
I ask you to take one moment to think about your quiet neighbors up North, in the Land of Sky Blue Huber, where we’ve had altogether enough of your little taxation schemes to punk us into paying for everything you want to give away. No, my grubby little tax and control friends, we in the North do not want your gambling. Our daily swim in the zeitgeist of our community gives us both great fodder for engaging conversation with neighbors, and a critical view of what putting yet another poison into our veins means to all of us. Those in our coalition of voices in the North, lean No on this issue.
Planning and Zoning Commission and city ordinances have done a good job at not “dumping” dispensaries in downtown or the north exclusively. There is no reason to believe that video gambling sites would be treated any different. As to control, I believe that having the individual make the decision is better than not, and continue to believe if people choose to “sin” by participating in these activities it is better if they are legal and generate revenues from “sin” taxes.
Mark’s comments on the idea of Video Poker in the downtown area are 100% correct and on point.
This is only happening because a group of homeowners in this area of Naperville has decided to remain unincorporated. And since the city has a policy of not forcing incorporation on owners these owner have created the “blighted” neighborhood that DuPage County is trying to take advantage of.
People in south Naperville should take note. There are several areas like this in South Naperville that Will County could to the same with.
As I mentioned in my post the city is taking legal action to prevent this “casino” from happening.