Surveys on neighborhood casinos have mixed results

Stephen Curran

Friday, April 22, 2005 | 9:41 a.m.

Those who already live near what the Clark County Commission dubs a neighborhood casino generally like them, according to one of two conflicting surveys of residents near existing properties.

In a matter expected to come before the commission-created neighborhood casino committee, researchers from Las Vegas consulting firm Strategic Solutions are expected to discuss three separate surveys of 300 homeowners, each living near the Boulder Station, Green Valley Ranch and Suncoast casinos, Terry Murphy, a committee member and consultant to powerful neighborhood casino company Station Casinos, said.

While a vast majority of homeowners living near the three casinos answered that the casinos had a positive or neutral impact on their quality of life, just over half -- 51 percent -- told researchers they knew when the projects were being built, she said.

"What this tells me is that you've got to increase notification," to existing or prospective homeowners, Murphy said.

The neighborhood casino committee held its first meeting earlier this month but reportedly stumbled both with what its power would be and in understanding what defines a neighborhood casino. The panel was proposed in January by Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, herself a former Station Casino board member, to look into the design issues that had prompted sometimes strong debate before the commission.

Boggs McDonald has said she was frustrated with loopholes in legislation passed in 1998 that allowed for 13 casinos in the Las Vegas areas and five more sites approved for development as neighborhood casinos.

"There are a lot of issues we need to look at," Boggs McDonald said Thursday. "I don't think they really grasped what a neighborhood casino means."

This morning's meeting at the Clark County Government Center was expected to come on the heels of another survey conducted by Magellan Research on behalf of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a staunch opponent of the Red Rock Station project now under construction on West Charleston Road.

That survey is also expected to be presented today.

In it, pollsters asked 602 Clark County residents and found that three-quarters disagreed when asked if they supported a decision to build a casino near Rhodes Ranch less than 1,500 feet from an elementary school and less than 700 feet from homes.

Chris Bohner, a spokesman for the union, said he had not read the Strategic-conducted survey but questioned some of the results he saw.

"There's a fallacy that the only implication of some of the results is (in order) to have bowling alleys and movie theaters you have to have a Strip-sized casino," he said. "There are communities across the country with those things without having Strip-sized casinos."

The union and other activists working to stem construction of neighborhood casinos have criticized the commission for allowing them to be built near schools, a move largely blasted by those who answered the group's survey.

But neither survey answered the fundamental land-use questions, Boggs McDonald said.

"We're a land-use body," she said. "We're not here to judge the Miss America pageant."