Does Jake's 58 Give Money To Suffolk County
Why the Shinnecock Tribe Is Clashing With the Hamptons' Aristocracy
The Shinnecock Indian Nation views a casino on its reservation as a path out of poverty, but some wealthy neighbors are up in artillery.
For two decades, the Shinnecock Indian Nation has tried and failed to open a casino near Manhattan in the hope that a gambling hall would be an economic engine to wrest them from poverty and fund social programs.
Now the tribe has its center on a new location: its home in the Hamptons.
The Shinnecock Hamptons Casino is expected to ascension on the tribe's reservation here on the E End of Long Island as early as 2023.
But some of the tribe'due south neighbors are uniting in opposition confronting placing the casino in this summer getaway known for staid, shingled summer homes endemic by wealthy and influential people, who fiercely guard the area's low-key experience. They regard the casino, which would feature bingo slots and poker, as a distasteful element every bit unwelcome as franchise restaurants and big box stores — which have been kept out to preserve the area'due south character.
Tribal leaders of the Shinnecocks said they have no choice only to build on the reservation and to start structure this summer, in an endeavor to get a jump on competitors seeking state licenses to build other casinos in or around New York City.
"This is about the preservation of our people," said Bryan Polite, the tribe's chairman. "The story of the Shinnecocks is one of struggle and perseverance, and that's what'southward happening right now."
The new casino plan comes every bit the country grapples with social and fiscal inequity issues with regard to many disenfranchised and oppressed groups, including Indigenous peoples. On the Shinnecock reservation, one person in five lives beneath the poverty line in a sparse mix of modest houses and ramshackle trailers. From a scruffy shoreline, the Shinnecocks can gaze across the bay at workers landscaping the lawns of huge Southampton summertime mansions. It is a stark inequity that tribal leaders hope can be improved past the fiscal lifeline of a tribally run casino.
Because the reservation is sovereign land, free from regime regulations, the planned Shinnecock Hamptons Casino cannot be blocked by local zoning laws and restrictions. That has not stopped a group of roughly 200 homeowners from forming the Hamptons Neighborhood Group and setting upward a website with the motto: "Continue the Hamptons the Hamptons!"
The group called the casino out of grapheme with its residential surroundings and said it would pb to increased traffic, as well as possible noise problems, disturbances and criminal offence. They have begun discussing with tribal leaders the possibility of finding another location that might as well do good the tribe.
"A lot of united states of america are bleeding-center liberals and sympathetic to the oppressed, and we empathise their effort for economic development," said a homeowner in the group, James Wacht. "Only information technology's not the right location."
The Southampton boondocks supervisor, Jay Schneiderman, said many local residents oppose the casino plan, and some have vowed to motion abroad if it is built. He said he respects the tribe's rights simply added, "I cannot call up of a worse location to build a casino."
Alan Woinski, a gambling industry analyst and consultant, said the Shinnecocks' proposal could cause enough of an uproar to pressure Gov. Andrew Grand. Cuomo to offer the tribe a deal to build a more lucrative casino elsewhere.
Mr. Polite said the tribe would certainly non rebuff an offer to find a more lucrative location.
"We would have preferred to accept a Las Vegas-manner casino close to Manhattan, but pocket-sized returns are better than no returns," Mr. Polite said.
Shinnecock leaders would not disembalm financial details, and it remains unclear how profitable the 76,000-foursquare-human foot casino might bear witness to be.
The casino on the reservation won approval from the federal National Indian Gaming Commission afterwards the Shinnecocks failed to get country support for a casino virtually Manhattan. That approval mandates that the casino must operate as a smaller Class 2 gaming facility — on reservation land only — with just bingo slots and a limited poker option. Those restrictions and existence 80 miles away from Manhattan could put the Shinnecocks' casino at a disadvantage with competitors.
When the Shinnecocks began trying to open one of the first casinos in New York State roughly 20 years ago, they cited studies reporting that, with the local market place wide open, such a gambling facility would exist probable to exist ane of the most lucrative casinos in the country.
Members envisioned their fortunes turning as they had for the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequot tribes in Connecticut, which benefited from the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, ii of the largest casinos in the country.
As the Shinnecocks' proposals failed, more than a dozen other casinos opened across the country, including three downstate — Jake'south 58 Casino Hotel in Islandia, in Suffolk County, is some 40 miles to the westward — that would certainly affect the tribe's potential client base. Jake'southward 58, which opened in 2017, is among the highest earning video-lottery betting sites in the country and is seeking state dominance to double its existing number of 1,000 video lottery terminals.
Shinnecock leaders are eager to open their casino quickly, with the state set up to issue three new licenses in 2023 for total-scale casino locations in or near New York City. These licenses are being sought by large casino operators and would further siphon potential customers from a casino in Southampton.
"We were at the table before those guys were and somehow nosotros got overlooked," said Seneca Bowen, 32, a tribal trustee, equally he viewed the planned casino site 1 twenty-four hours earlier this month.
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The tribe, which is expecting up to $half-dozen meg toward economic relief and social programs from the Biden administration's stimulus package, is embarking on the casino with Tri Country Partners, which has worked with the Seminole tribe on the Hard Stone Hotel & Casino in Atlantic Urban center.
Of the roughly 500 casinos opened by Indian tribes across the state, some have succeeded in lifting tribes out of poverty while others have disappointed with meager profits or even airtight because of competition, poor location or disputes with financial partners, Mr. Woinski said.
Even with a limited profitability because of size and gaming restrictions, the Shinnecock casino's location would probably yield reliable revenue, he said. "Information technology's the Hamptons," he said. "And also, there are no other casinos there, so people will go."
That's what residents surrounding the reservation worry about.
Shinnecock leaders said they were open to working with the homeowners group as long as it did not derail the casino program.
Mr. Polite called the project vital to the survival of the Shinnecocks and dismissed the opposition every bit "hysteria created anytime we effort to do anything." Compared to the planned casino, he said, "You lot accept houses around here that are three times that size."
Striding the bundle of land where the casino would be built, Randy King, 58, vice chairman of the tribe, said members do not desire an opportunity to pass them past. As casino attempts failed through the years, he said tribal members wondered, "When is the arc of justice going to swing our manner?"
The showtime white settlers arrived in the Town of Southampton, the oldest English settlement in New York, in 1640. In the centuries since then, the tribe has had repeated disputes with the boondocks and has seen its land steadily shrink to its current 900-acre reservation.
It has sued seeking reparations and the return of thousands of acres, including the Shinnecock Hills Golf game Club, where the U.Due south. Open up has been played five times.
Of the tribe'southward 1,600 members, some 720 alive on the reservation, where the median household income is nigh $xxx,000, less than a third of the median income in surrounding Suffolk County.
The tribe's existing income streams range from the annual Labor Mean solar day confab to smoke shops selling untaxed cigarettes to the large electronic billboards on tribal state along Sunrise Highway.
Casino revenue would help economic development and welfare on the reservation by funding social programs and improvements too every bit creating jobs, Mr. Polite said.
The possibility of cash stipends for families has non been decided yet, just casino acquirement would help the tribe aggrandize its family unit assistance fund to aid members with such expenses as rent, nutrient, utilities and car payments, he said. Money would as well go to a new recreational middle and expansion of the tribal security force, Mr. Polite said.
"It's significant revenue for us, and it will make an immediate impact and alter the quality of life here overnight," he said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/nyregion/casino-hamptons-shinnecock.html?section=New%20York
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