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Chasing Wisdom - All hands on deck at Riverside Casino
Op-Ed · August 30, 2006
Excavating to make room for water bladders, folks, is when the spirit of the law has officially drowned.
I like to believe I’m a curious fellow, in the sense that I like to know what’s happening in the world around me. That’s a big reason I got into the profession that I did — news.
Most curious people have a tendency to read everything they can find, whether it’s newspapers, magazines, cereal boxes or road signs. I’d happily say that I’m that kind of person; to some extent, I always have been.
Nonetheless, there are a few subjects under the sun that hold zero interest for me. I see them and immediately flip the channel, turn the page, look away — my mind wants as little to do with them as possible. For some people, politics is one of these subjects. For me, it’s brand spanking new casinos.
I had managed to avoid learning about the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort until Monday morning of this week, when the Press-Citizen introduced an eight-page special section titled, “SHUFFLE up and PLAY.” Inside, there’s what we in the biz call a double-truck spread — two full-color pages devoted to giving us every juicy detail of the casino’s floor plan, from the location of the VIP room (with a bar) to the video games (embedded in two bars) to private dining areas, where presumably you can buy yourself a drink.
Heck, there’s even a restaurant inside called Robert’s Buffet. That one’s got my name written all over it. (I couldn’t resist.)
The spread, titled “ROLLING IN RIVERSIDE” — I only use all caps because they do, and because it’s that exciting! — tells us that the new casino is roughly the size of Kinnick Stadium and perhaps a bit larger than Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where a sell-out crowd is about 15,500.
But the most fascinating item, perhaps, is that the casino was actually built on 29 water bladders made of PVC material. This, of course, is because Iowa Code requires that all casinos be built on water.
Excavating to make room for water bladders, folks, is when the spirit of the law has officially drowned.
I don’t fault the good folks at the Press-Citizen for covering the casino like a straight jacket on a prisoner — in fact, that may be a better analogy than I thought. The majority of voters in Washington County wanted this beast, and they deserve to know what they got.
Riverside, the fictional birthplace of Captain Kirk, isn’t far from West Branch. I’ve never been there myself but I hear from local gambling afficionados that it’s just a 20-minute drive. How fortunate for them.
Suffice it to say, it’s not a 20-minute drive I’ll be making anytime soon. It’s not the drinking, or the Texas Hold ’Em or the the indoor/outdoor pool that will keep me away, nor the 201 hotel rooms with high-speed internet or the fact that the casino will be the largest employer in Washington County.
I suppose I’m just not much for the casino atmosphere, where obese and thin people alike sit at slot machines, hoping against hope that they’ll come out ahead at the end of the night.
Not unlike these slot players, the entire Washington County economy will soon become dependent on the casino — begging it for money, opening complementary businesses, basking in the glow of tourism.
I suppose it will all work for them, at least for a while. But when I look at this eight-page newspaper spread that is Riverside’s future, I can only think that I’m happy to be living in West Branch — a comfortable distance away from it all.
Maybe you’ll think it curious, but I’d take Herbert Hoover and a historic downtown over Captain Kirk and a casino any day of the week.
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