Casino chaos

Lancaster councillers are in talks about converting an un-used office block into a nice new shiny Casino.

Excited? Yeah me too, although there are a few environmental impacts that would be worth thinking about before you completely agreed with the proposal.

From what i've gathered the casino will be right by a catholic sixth form school which could cause a problem, knowing how impressionable I was to putting the odd 50p at stake for a (usually unsuccessful) game of top trumps in school. If you'd have got me interested in craps and poker there's any number of horrible and dark scenarios i'd have ended up in! Of course i'm not suggesting this will happen, i just like to speculate! Before we know it, school kids will have swapped hop-scotch for Roulette and the hard kids will be on the 'one-armed bandits'.

I'm using this in jest because to be honest, I don't see a problem with the building of a casino, its bound to generate revenue (30 jobs in fact) and a new found interest in the city of Lancaster but it doesn't hurt to take a look at both sides of the argument.

I can see how parents wouldn't want their children to see a casino so close to school, which could well be glamourising a gambling culture. It's bad enough that we havn't got enough positive role models in the world as it is; arguably, i suppose planting a casino right outside your school is just asking for truancy.

There's also another issue of an already over-crowded road network without adding to insult with a band of Building Site's merry men (probably readily prepared with bum cracks and wolf whistles). While all this is going on, probably with roads being restricted or even shut down for a few days - will it be worth it? What are the benefits?

Well, as it happens there's some pretty good benefits, starting with the 30 brand new jobs being established in place for the new casino. I expect it will also attract new interest from people who perhaps wouldn't normally visit Lancaster, which in turn could generate even more revenue to maintain these people's interest, not to mention putting Lancaster just that little bit more on the map. Added to that, police and Lancaster officials can't see a problem with the casino being built, which i assume would mean that Lancaster would have complete backing of both departments to make sure this casino is a positive step forward for Lancaster city.

Think of it what you will but I'll be getting my pennies out and eagerly anticipating the opening as soon as possible!