Gambling? Lingle Opens to the Possibility

[Kelena]

Gambling is so antithetical to Hawaiian values I don't even know where to begin. Come to the Hawaiian Islands and disappear into an air conditioned, smokey, pukey place where bells are going off while people walk around in a daze, obsessed? What works on the mainland and is well-absorbed there does not necessarily work on an island, where the effects of a vice are more widely and immediately felt. Gambling is one of the worst methods of raising revenue possible. First, the state doesn't get all the revenue. And where gambling goes, crime follows. Do we need more of that?

Gambling will bring in tourists? No, natural beauty will bring in tourists, and when you blight that natural beauty with Casinos, Walmarts, Targets and the like, you ultimately remove the reason that people come in the first place: to be someplace different and beautiful.