Several key elected officials joined with the alliance “A Sure Bet for New York’s Future” in a rally and news conference at Empire City Casino in Yonkers on Nov. 17. The event provided an opportunity for participants to exert additional pressure for New York state to issue a full-scale commercial casino license to the MGM Resorts facility.
The alliance is composed of more than 70 business, labor, nonprofit and community organizations.
“We in this part of the state want this to happen, and we want it to happen now,” said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, chairman of the Assembly’s Racing and Wagering Committee. “This helps the Bronx, Westchester, Rockland County and the state of New York. That”™s what this is all about, helping the state of New York.”
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano threw his support behind the effort to convince lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul to act quickly on the matter once the legislature meets again in January.
Spano chastised the approach taken in Albany that has delayed licensing downstate casinos for operations similar to what’s found in Las Vegas in order to protect upstate casinos that already have their full licenses.
“It was, ‘Maybe we hold up Yonkers so we get upstate off the ground first. Maybe we hold off sports betting until we get upstate off the ground first,’” Spano said. “We don’t need to wait for upstate. We know this is successful.”
Spano said that full casino operations at Empire City would bring into the region hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs.
“Nine million people a year come to this destination,” Spano said. “They are now the largest taxpayer to the City of Yonkers, the largest private employer to the City of Yonkers and we have a chance to take the next step.”
Westchester County Executive George Latimer said, “The economic impact to the City of Yonkers and the City of Mount Vernon of this site becoming a full casino is incalculable. The amount of need in Yonkers and Mount Vernon as well as the Bronx, which is a baseball’s throw south of us from here, is going to tremendously improve the communities that are urban and impacted by all the problems that an urban government has.”
Latimer said that the financial impact of a full casino license would spread throughout the region.
“It can happen right now because the people that need those jobs need it right now,” Latimer said. “The government that needs the revenue to do good things in their communities, the school districts, they need it right now. So the action should be right now.”
State Sen. Shelly Mayer said that she and others in the Democratic majority that controls the Senate are committed to getting the license approved, “no question, no excuses, no delay.”
Nathalia Fernandez, an Assembly member from the Bronx, said, “I really hope the governor is on board, because if not, she”™s gonna hear from all of us, especially in the Bronx.”
John Ravitz, executive vice president and CEO of the Business Council of Westchester, which is co-chair of the alliance, pointed out that a full commercial casino license would allow Empire City to replace electronic games with live dealer tables, offer Las Vegas-style slot machines and offer other features and amenities. He said the casino already has the sixth-largest gaming floor in the country and is the largest casino in the MGM Resorts portfolio.
“With a commercial casino license, Empire City Casino would immediately begin to hire over 2,000 new employees,” Ravitz said. “The economic impact for this region would be over $1 billion and it would create an additional 10,000 indirect and induced jobs, hoping to lift the residents and businesses of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, the Bronx and beyond out of the financial crisis caused by the pandemic.”
