The Culinary Union represents 55,000 members, many of whom live and work in the City of Las Vegas.

We ask you to deny the TIF application by the Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino. It is unfair for a casino developer to get tax breaks while we have so many needs in our schools, libraries, police and fire, and other public services in the city.

Our position is very simple: if you cannot make it in the gaming industry without public subsidies, you have no business being in the gaming industry.

And the case of the Lucky Dragon before you today is even more troubling. The company is asking you to help them out when they have not been able to raise enough money from outside investors on their own. As you know, the Lucky Dragon was supposed to be funded primarily by EB-5 investors, who can get a path to U.S. citizenship through direct investment in the U.S. The project’s Regional Center was approved in 2012, and its EB-5 fundraising target was $115 million.[1] And here we are, three years later, the company has raised only $60 million from EB-5 investors.[2] If they cannot convince enough foreign investors to invest, even with the promise of eventual U.S. citizenship, we should all ask why that is the case.

It is not the government’s place to step in to bail out a developer when their project shows itself to be unattractive to investors.

Las Vegas gaming companies have built many amazing resorts and created hundreds of thousands of jobs over the years. They have not needed any public support. And those that have failed, failed on their own.

Our members want to know that our tax dollars go to pay for public services that we need, and NOT to wealthy developers to make money for themselves.

If you remember, less than a year ago, tax breaks for the proposed downtown stadium very quickly proved to be a very unpopular idea. I urge you not to make the same mistake again by giving away our tax dollars to the Lucky Dragon.