The Lotuslandian Casino-Industrial Complex....Its Baaaaaack!!!

She'sGoingToDoIt
Pottersville(Re-)RisingVille


Yes.

That's right.

Those fine folks from Vegas are going for the gold again.

Bob Mackin has the story in BIV. Here's his lede:

Paragon Gaming is rolling the dice on another bid to build a new Edgewater Casino next to BC Place stadium on land it wants to lease from BC Pavilion Corp. (PavCo)...

But here's the thing...

Even if this does go through we won't get the money originally promised back in the days when former BCLC head-honcho and subsequent Paragon point-man, Mr. C. Richard Turner, was telling the then BC Liberal minister responsible that if we didn't shell out $500 million plus for the new roof on the Marshmallow, it would be a 'deal breaker':

...Paragon revealed on a new website called Site10a.com that it signed an updated master development agreement with PavCo in March for a 70-year lease, which calls for PavCo to receive “an estimated $3 million per year” from the hotel, retail and restaurant complex anchored by Edgewater Casino. Site 10A is the city hall designation for the taxpayer-owned parcel within the Northeast False Creek zone. The website was registered on June 19 and disclosed to Business in Vancouver on July 9...

{snippety doo-dah}

...The $3 million-a-year lease payments, earmarked to lessen the debt on the $514 million stadium renovation, are half the originally proposed $6 million. The 70-year term is the same as previously disclosed...



But here's the bigger thing...

All in all, things do not seem to be going quite so well for the wild bunch from Vegas these days, because, according to their spokesmodel at least, they are looking to bring in outside interests to invest in the new version of the casino-industrial-complex:

...By email, Paragon spokeswoman Tamara Hicks told BIV that the company will "continue to seek partnerships for the new project. These partnership discussions remain confidential."...

'Confidential'?

'Partnerships'?

With Vegas-types?

Hmmmmm....

Finally (for now), there's this:

...While Paragon is refloating the BC Place proposal, the company is transferring ownership of its River Cree Resort near Edmonton to its partner, the Enoch Cree Nation.

In April 2011, Paragon defaulted on a $111 million loan after the Alberta government stopped payments from the First Nations Development Fund...
Gosh.

The River Cree Resort near Edmonton...

Isn't that the Paragon project that the Mr. C. Richard Turner was financially involved in while he was still running the British Columbia Lottery Corporation as a BC Liberal Party appointee before any of this phone calling of Ministers about deal-breakers started?

Why yes it was.

______
And wasn't a certain very fine public servant, who is now Christy Clark's Attorney General and Justice Minister, actually sitting on the PavCo Board as a Christy Clark appointee when this latest deal went down?...Could this be the same very fine public servant who was also sitting on Vancouver city council when it voted UNANIMOUSLY to kibosh the first attempt by Paragon and 'friends' to ram the Casino-Industrial Complex through back in the Spring of 2011?...Not that there's anything wrong with any of that or anything...Does, maybe, tell you something about what would have happened if that very fine public servant had become mayor of downtown Lotusland though, I reckon.


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