By Brian Trompeter
A proposed Tysons casino has been tabled until next year for further discussion in the General Assembly, but local civic activists on Feb. 20 reminded the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors of their adamant opposition to the gaming facility.
Outfitted in red T-shirts with “No Tysons Casino” in white lettering, several speakers inveighed against the casino during the public-comment period at the meeting’s end.
North East Vienna Citizens Association president Robert McCahill warned that a Tysons casino would affect Vienna deleteriously. Vienna and adjacent Tysons have been different, but complementary, communities for many years, he said.
“I cannot comprehend how a casino could make that relationship better,” McCahill.
Vienna’s traffic already is beyond-capacity and a Tysons casino would make matters worse for town residents, he said.
“A nearby casino could easily lead to lower commercial-property values, the closing of our local businesses and replacement by the type of businesses that co-locate with gaming sites, especially businesses like pawn shops, tattoo parlors or the like,” McCahill said. “The negative impact on Vienna’s family friendly image could be enormous.”
Sally Horn, chairman of the Greater Tysons Citizens Coalition, noted that early state Senate discussions on the casino proposed by state Sen. David Marsden (D-Fairfax) did not let the Board of Supervisors or local residents have seats at the table.
That led to casino advocates suggesting incorrectly the proposal had received “tacit support,” she said, citing remarks by Marsden at the Feb. 6 Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee meeting that Fairfax County officials had not taken a position against the legislation.
Casino-related problems also could lead corporations to bypass Tysons and cause current businesses to depart, Horn said. Small-business owners also worry that a casino could harm their prospects, she said.
Horn disputed whether a gambling emporium would produce a windfall for the county.
“It is highly doubtful that a casino will bring such significant amounts of money to Fairfax that the county would simultaneously be able to give everyone a $500 to $600 tax break, close the current county budgetary and Metro funding shortfalls, close the school-construction-funding gap and compensate for the current, likely temporary, loss in commercial-tax revenues, as casino proponents have suggested,” she said.
Any General Assembly study of potential casino impacts in Tysons must be objective and unbiased, said Providence District resident Andrew Pavord.
Pavord cautioned against a “substitution effect,” wherein casino revenues would come at the expense of other local businesses.
“Casinos have not saved Maryland,” Pavord said. The social harms “are not worth the mirage of additional revenue,” he said.
Dennis Hays, president emeritus of the Reston Citizens Association, wondered why the two senators pushing the casino proposal – Marsden and state Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Mount Vernon) – did not seek the facility in their districts.
“We look to you, as our elected officials, to protect us from special interests who believe that money overpowers common sense,” he told supervisors.
