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Community Corner

No to Keno Gambling in Sudbury

the Keno dam is broken. the Keno wave is coming to Sudbury! neon orange Keno signs up and down route 20 (why not 29 Sudbury, too, in the Historic District?). loud, drunken, sloppy gamblers wasting their time and money, annoying families trying to live/eat/enjoy each other and a supposedly quiet family town in peace. how so? the new Bistro 20 owner has Keno in 2 of his locations and wants to bring Keno to Bistro 20. Why now? b/c the town rolled over on the Lavender Keno application so the word is out that Sudbury is cool with Keno. nice towns all over the State fight Keno tooth and nail - restaurants may have the law and the State on their side but most don't want the hassle to fight for Keno where it's explicitly not wanted and where towns will spend money fighting. Bob Haarde objected adamantly to the Lavender Keno application but was overruled by 3 other Selectmen who didn't even have a clue what Keno was (I'm serious, watch the tape) - so they waived Lavender on through to the State's rubber stamp without any input or discussion from anyone in town. Haarde had the courage to walk out of the meeting, to the derision of the other Selectmen, because he was so outraged and morally opposed to their acquiescing so easily (and naively) to bringing gambling to Sudbury. I don't buy the argument that the Selectmen had short notice on the Lavender application - we're such a well run town, remember? I don't buy the argument that Sudbury can't fight Keno. we can but b/c we have no functioning legal counsel, we are the least litigious town in the State. With the State's crushing pension and unfunded healthcare liabilities, it needs all the revenue it can get so Beacon Hill (including our reps. Conroy and Eldridge) strip local towns' ability to stop gambling (and likewise to stop low income housing via 40B). here's the formula: more people, more gambling, more taxes, more everything helps pay for the State's debt load and unfunded pension/healthcare obligations. without growth and gambling (hello, Deval), the State would go bankrupt. do you care about your town and community? want to live in a quiet, small town and raise your family in peace? too bad, the State has other ideas. ask your Selectmen what he/she thinks of Keno next time you see him/her. IF THE RTE 20 SEWER GOES IN, EXPECT MUCH MORE OF THIS NONSENSE!!!

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