Welcome to de Blasio’s New York: Everything You Need to Know About Last Night’s Elections
Coney Island Will Be the New Atlantic City
Did everyone remember to vote for all the ballot proposals? You needed to flip the Scantron-thing over to do that. Well, it’s too late now. And while many of the proposals were complicated and difficult to understand, there was one that was pretty clear: legalizing gambling throughout New York state. This proposal passed last night, with 57% of the vote, and so now those Marty Markowitz-dreams of casinos on Coney Island could easily become a reality. Yay? I have really mixed feeling about this (as in, I absolutely hate the idea), but can acknowledge that the tax revenues from gambling could prove to be a huge asset to the state’s budget. Other ballot measures that passed included one that reinforces the current retirement ages of judges, one that gives an overdue credit to disabled veterans, and something about the sewage system that was very hard to understand and probably will not ever be something that you think about ever again, and some land dispute in the Adirondacks. But the big thing, obviously, was legalized gambling. It’s hard to say at this point what it will look like for the state, the city, or our borough, but it’s pretty clear that there are plenty of people with plenty of money who are chomping at the bit to build casinos in Coney Island. Hopefully, though, Donald Trump will stay away. His family has a dark history with Coney Island and, if it was up to me, he’d never be allowed to return.