With just seven weeks before the start of the 2025 General Assembly session, supporters and opponents of a proposed casino operation in Tysons are dusting off their arguments and ramping up their efforts.
In the latest round in the fight, advocates on both sides of the issue used a public hearing on the county’s draft 2025 legislative priorities and the public comment period at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday (Nov. 19) to focus attention on the matter.
“We do not want a casino,” William Comerford, a 46-year resident of Vienna, said, arguing that gaming operations “threaten the very essence of our county.”
“Casinos and crime go together hand in glove,” he added.
Another opponent was William Doolittle, president of the homeowners’ association for The Rotonda, a 34-acre condominium complex with thousands of residents in Tysons.
Doolittle said a survey of residents found that 86% opposed the casino, 94% believed a casino would increase traffic congestion, and 84% believed one would lead to an increase in crime.
“We already have enough problems in Tysons. We do not need a casino,” he said.
Supporters of the casino proposal were outnumbered, but not absent.
Epaminondas Mouhanis, an organizing director with UNITE HERE 25 — a labor union representing hotel, restaurant and casino workers — told supervisors the proposal would be good not just for those future employees, but those who construct the facility.
“Union jobs give higher pay, pensions … and dignity,” Mouhanis told supervisors. “Please stand with the working class.”
State Sen. Dave Marsden (D-35) patroned a bill in the 2024 General Assembly session to add Fairfax County — specifically Tysons — to the list of Virginia localities eligible to host casino operations, if authorized by county voters in a referendum.
A Senate subcommittee initially kicked the proposal to 2025 to allow for more study, but Marsden’s bill effectively was killed this week on procedural grounds. He recently confirmed to FFXnow that he plans to introduce a similar measure for the 2025 session, though details aren’t expected for another few weeks.
Fairfax County elected officials have been generally skeptical about the proposal led by the developer Comstock Companies, which was reportedly eyeing a former Aston Martin and Bentley dealership in Tysons for an entertainment development that would include a casino.
While some individual supervisors have come out against the measure, including Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, who represents Reston and part of Tysons, opponents have urged the county board as a whole to take an official position.
Among them was Vienna Mayor Linda Colbert, who said defeating the casino was the top legislative priority for the town government in the 2025 state legislative session.
“Join us in saying no,” Colbert urged county board members. “There are too many negatives.”
Linda Walsh, president of the McLean Citizens Association, said supervisors needed to “make a clear statement: Fairfax County does not want a casino.”
Sally Horn, a veteran McLean civic activist, argued that a casino in close proximity to areas like the CIA headquarters and national-security contractors poses a serious risk. Military personnel government employees or contractors could be entrapped or otherwise compromised by foreign agents, who fuel their gambling addictions in return for sensitive information, she suggested.
Horn pointed to “Russia, China and others who would do our country ill” as among those potentially eager to see another gaming emporium in the D.C. region.
Supervisors did not respond on the issue at their Nov. 19 meeting. Marsden’s expected casino bill currently isn’t addressed in their 2025 legislative priorities, which are set for adoption on Dec. 3 and will be presented to the county’s delegation to the General Assembly on Dec. 10.
The 2025 legislative session will begin in Richmond on Jan. 8 and run for 45 days.
Photo via Kaysha/Unsplash
