After the initial investment in construction, casinos will be a steady drain on the economy. Locally owned restaurants, bars, and hotels that plow their profits back into the state’s economy will lose out to gambling moguls who live and spend their money elsewhere. Recreational dollars that are now spent on the Cape and in the western part of the state will, with casinos, be sucked out of Massachusetts.

I’m pleased that Mayor Curtatone was knowledgeable enough to refer to casinos as “fool’s gold.” I am more than a little bitter about my former support of Deval Patrick. It’s like he was looking around to find the most destructive and regressive thing he could do in Massachusetts.