Letter: Nevadans should rein in gaming moguls’ authority

Friday, June 27, 1997 | 11:17 a.m.

The town that will rise from the dust storms and the gated communities and the imported population will be a new entity. We will become a city of 2 million in a decade or so, but we will not grow culturally until we face the mirror and identify the blatant moral deterioration that consistently grants privilege to the gambling business and consistently ignores the plight of those who fall in the wake.

We have to find a new place to stand our ground as citizens. Hiding behind the local corporate gambling machine will not provide shelter for long, even on a physical and material basis. The spiritual implications of a family-oriented culture rising from the pain of its neighbors is frightening to any people who actually believe in a higher spiritual plane. We are reaching a point where we have to define our limits. The people have the right to live away from casinos. Let's make that clear. Let's do it this session.

If we waste our current chance to become a viable contender in the technology market, then Nevada will have no industry when the current wave of con men are through with us, and we will have no money in the state treasury, either.

I suggest that each assembly person and senator truly weigh the possibility of voting yes on taxing the casino industry for the benefit of the community. It may be true that the 1/4 percent increase is very little to ask of each person, but, in light of the fact that the casino industry is literally running rampant, it's too much to ask. It's time to make fresh demands on the dangerous and aggressive casino community. And it's time to stop pretending that they are normal businesses who make a normal impact on a community. Our statistics concerning the welfare of our young people tell us differently. Our statistics concerning the mortality of our gambling seniors tell us differently.

If this legislative session fails to make significant inroads toward ending the shameless reign of the gambling lobbyists, then the people of Nevada will feel abandoned, and rightly so.

Ann Reynolds