A casino won't help

March 20, 2008

Dear Sir,

My family and I just returned from another very enjoyable vacation in Bermuda. While relaxing I got to read The Royal Gazette most days. This was my sixth visit to your wonderful island and fourth as a family, one of which was our honeymoon eighteen years ago.

There are two articles in the Gazette that I think are worth referring to; the two young men working with Keep Bermuda Beautiful (March 12) and the letter from Mr. E. Raben (March 13) concerning casinos on the Island.

I have noticed over the years that Bermuda has lost its shine somewhat, there is far more litter and dumping of garbage than there used to be and downtown Hamilton is looking quite tired. If you want to attract more tourists complementing God's wonderful creation with clean streets, and up-to-date stores would be a good place to start. Maybe even relocate the dockyards and make Front Street into something really special. Kudos to Matthew Witoski and Michael Mello for setting a great example.

Please don't think that opening up a casino on the island will benefit the island as a whole. In every location I can think of Casinos do not help the economy as a whole – tourists just go to the casinos and stay there, directing them away from all the other attractions and restaurants in the neighbourhood.

And, living in a province with casinos, trust me when I say that you don't want to contend with the ills that they bring. You are already experiencing problems with crime related to feeding drug addictions, you don't want to add gambling addictions to the list.

May I suggest that the Government institute a duty rebate program for tourists. Goods were expensive and there was no incentive for us to buy anything to take home.

On a lighter side we came up with our Top Ten lists of our likes and dislikes of Bermuda (in no specific order):

Likes

The courteous and friendly bus drivers.

Seeing all the school children in their uniforms.

Marvelling at how courteous and polite the school children were.

Your beautiful beaches.

No billboards anywhere.

No fast food restaurants

No casinos.

Very family friendly.

We didn't hear any swearing or profanity.

Dislikes

Fast bus drivers.

Bus drivers who play rap music on their radios.

Garbage and litter on the streets and in the hedgerows.

Power lines on the main roads (they're ugly and ruin photo opportunities).

No more Triminghams.

Coming home!

DAVID HARRISON

Scarborough, Ontario