Posted on 12/19/2004 8:18:09 PM PST by B Knotts
CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. - For 12,000 years or more, Columbia River tribes gathered along the banks near here to do business with distant tribes.
Now they want to come back - not to cut deals in fish and baskets, as their ancestors did, but to deal blackjack and poker.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs want to close a small casino on their reservation in remote central Oregon and build one on nontribal land in this town on the banks of the Columbia, much closer to Portland, the state's largest city, and the thousands of gamblers a casino would attract.
Cascade Locks officials see a casino as the last, best hope for this struggling town of 1,100.
But the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, formed to protect the beauty of one of the nation's first designated national scenic areas, cringes at the thought, predicting pollution, crowds and bad precedent.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
If it's not on the reservation, then is is subject to Oregon law. So far as I know, Oregon law denies me the power to build a casino (or even to run my own video poker machines). Why should indians be any different just because of the accident of their birth?
And again, it's not really the warm springs tribes that want to build this casino. They are just willing to be the front for a Las Vegas corporation that is the real money and authority behind this deal (and who will ultimately benefit the most).
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