Fury as beach town eyes becoming new Vegas: Thousands of residents fear ‘predatory’ casino will erase history

America’s oldest amusement park could be transformed into the new Las Vegas, as developers eye the site of a glittering new casino complex. 

The vision is one of eight proposals competing for three casino licenses in New York City. This week two of the bids were shut down. 

Proposals for casinos in Manhattan’s Times Square and on undeveloped West Side land ended after community advisory committees rejected the projects in key votes on Wednesday.

Plans to construct a multi-billion dollar 24-hour gambling district close to homes and other businesses often face opposition – but ‘The Coney’ project is facing perhaps the fiercest pushback of all from the remaining bids. 

Residents and local councilmembers have told the Daily Mail that a ‘predatory’ casino would ‘erase’ the history of America’s first large-scale amusement park, while bringing increased traffic, crime and addiction to a low-income area. 

Aspirational renderings of the $3 billion complex proposed by a cabal of wealthy developers show an argyle-patterned casino and hotel skyscrapers beside Coney Island’s famous Nathan’s hotdog stand, Cyclone rollercoaster and Wonder Wheel. 

But residents have claimed this wouldn’t be the reality, saying the casino would dwarf the Brooklyn peninsula’s bustling boardwalk, and effectively replace their centuries-old beachside community with another ‘soulless’ casino. 

‘It won’t be Coney Island any more, it will be casino island,’ lifelong resident Marissa Solomon told the Daily Mail. 

‘They would be erasing this historic and unique community, and replacing it with something we already have in Atlantic City, in Las Vegas. 

‘We are going to have three casinos in New York City approved by the end of the year. Placing one in Coney Island would be like building a casino over Central Park.’

Solomon, 57, is local assemblyman Alec Brook Krasny’s appointee to the six-member Community Advisory Committee (CAC) which is reviewing the casino application. 

‘Both in my time on the Community Advisory Committee and having been involved in the community group against the casino, I have reviewed a lot of the developers’ material. I have definitely given them a fair hearing,’ Solomon said. 

Thor Equities, Chickasaw Nation’s Global Gaming Solutions, Saratoga Casino Holdings and Legends Hospitality Group, which is part-owned by the Yankees, are the developers behind The Coney bid.  

They say the 1.4-million-square-foot entertainment complex will feature a 500-room hotel, 20 restaurants, an entertainment venue, and more than an acre of publicly accessible open space. 

‘For years, we have heard that Coney Island needs jobs and local businesses need foot traffic outside of the summer months. The Coney delivers both,’ Saratoga Casino Holdings CEO Sam Gerrity told the Daily Mail in a statement. 

‘This project represents an opportunity unlike any other to positively impact historically marginalized communities swiftly and tangibly. 

‘No project embodies the essence of realizing dormant economic opportunity and potential as completely as The Coney.’

However, Solomon believes the majority of construction and entertainment jobs created through the project will not be offered to local people.

‘Only 8.7 percent of those jobs – or 182 – would go to Coney Island residents, by our calculations, and many of these jobs would be part-time,’ she told the Daily Mail.   

Solomon said the neighborhood of 48,500 people has an unemployment rate of 17.2 percent, and the proposed jobs would reduce this by only 0.77 percentage points. 

She said this is nowhere near enough to offset the negative impacts residents believe the casino will bring to their local area, including traffic hell, unaffordable taxes, and increased crime and addiction levels. 

‘We have three main streets,’ Solomon explained. ‘The size of the streets they are proposing to build on – it just doesn’t fit.

‘Many of the roads would become impassable. It’s just the laws of physics. 

‘The developers’ own environmental impact statement rated it an F – meaning the streets would be gridlocked. 

‘The only plans the casino developers have to mitigate this is painting the crossings and adding a traffic light. This is obviously inadequate.’

Solomon added that developers would ‘rely on the subway’ to handle the influx of thousands of visitors, but they expect the city to foot the bill for this. 

The developers have also proposed funding a new ferry route to Coney Island. 

‘Everybody here would love to have a ferry, but the problem is the cost and the physical geography of Coney Island,’ Solomon said. 

‘The minimum cost of bringing an oceanside ferry would be $200 million. They have proposed $10 million funding – what is that going to pay for, two and a half boats?’ 

New York State Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny told the Daily Mail that he also opposes the development, and the influx of casino-goers is his ‘biggest concern’. 

‘Coney Island is a small peninsula,’ he said. ‘It has only one transportation artery connecting it to the rest of the world. That’s Cropsey Avenue. The proposed development is right next to the avenue.’

Brook-Krasny, who said he is the only elected official for the area who resides on the island, added: ‘I live at the very western peak of this peninsula. 

‘Some days, the half a mile stretch in between my house and Cropsey Avenue takes almost an hour by car.’ 

Brook-Krasny said that due to its geographical location, Coney Island is vulnerable to natural disasters, adding that it was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the ‘Superstorm’ which hit the eastern US in 1993. 

He said these disasters would have been much worse if the island had a large population without the means to escape quickly. 

‘In this area, traffic can easily become a life and death situation,’ he said. 

Brook-Krasny said he believes ‘around 85 percent’ of residents are opposed to the casino development, as a conservative estimate. 

Lucy Mujica-Diaz, 59, is leading a local opposition group protesting the plans. 

Originally from Bushwick, Brooklyn, Mujica-Diaz made Coney Island her home in 1990 and believes that the development will devastate the community she loves. 

‘As a homeowner, one of the biggest things for me personally is taxes are going to be raised because when this type of development comes to a community, your property value goes up,’ she told the Daily Mail. 

‘I’m in a middle-to-low-income community because I can’t afford higher taxes. Never in my lifetime of almost 60 years has New York City reduced our taxes. 

‘The seniors in my area especially are going to have to sell or go to foreclosure. And chances are, they can’t sell, because who is going to want to live next to a casino that never closes? 

‘I live next to the amusement park, I knew that when I moved in there would be tourists for six months of the year. But we need peace at some time of the year. 

‘In addition, the YMCA provides meals for people here. Why would we want to bring a casino to people who are begging for food?’ 

Mujica-Diaz said the casino will also ‘push up prices of food and gas’ and gentrify the area. ‘People here won’t be able to afford it,’ she said. ‘They will have to move out.’

Local businesses including Luna Park Amusement, which operates the 98-year-old wooden Cyclone rollercoaster, and the owners of the iconic Wonder Wheel, have also opposed the plans. 

‘Casinos are not engines of sustainable development – they are predatory institutions that exploit financial vulnerability, depress surrounding businesses, and increase social burdens such as crime, addiction, and poverty,’ Luna Park said in a statement attached to a petition signed by 20,000 people.

‘Coney Island deserves investment in education, healthcare, and small business support – not a casino that siphons wealth from the community under the guise of economic development.

‘The future of Coney Island should be shaped by its residents, not dictated by corporate developers behind closed doors.’

The developers have insisted that smaller retailers intrinsic to Coney Island are part of their vision to revitalize the area.  

‘From cornerstone institutions like Nathan’s and Gargiulo’s to the smaller retail shops and bodegas, no one is being left behind in our plan,’ Executive Vice President of Business Development at Legends said in a statement. 

‘That’s because we envision a project that incorporates the local business community instead of excluding it. 

‘We understand and appreciate the phenomenal neighborhood that surrounds us, and it’s not just smart, it’s essential, to partner with them in the progress this project will bring.’

Solomon, whose family have lived in Coney Island for generations, said she does not think the historic, rickety amusement area would survive being dwarfed by the modern casino complex. 

‘The developers are claiming it’s going to bring all these people to the amusement area, but I don’t think the people going to the casino are going to be riding the Cyclone,’ she told the Daily Mail. 

‘The owner of the Wonder Wheel said casinos and amusement parks are like oil and water, and he said the approval of the project would be like a dagger through his heart.’ 

Solomon said that local pubs and restaurants are also unlikely to benefit, because the complex comes with its own restaurants and casinos often offer free drinks. 

She added that of all the casino plans slated in New York City, The Coney is the most invasive. 

‘This is the only one of the casino proposals which is right across the road from residents,’ she said. 

‘They are going to put this 24-hour casino complex right across from where people live. They are going to reduce the quality of life with the increase in crime, pollution and traffic it will bring.’

‘This is what happened in Atlantic City, those who could afford to move away did, and were replaced with a casino monopoly,’ she added. 

‘They want an Atlantic City in Coney Island. We want to live in Coney Island, not Atlantic City.’

Solomon said that the casino complex is the culmination of a years-long campaign by billionaire developer Joseph Sitt to execute ‘a hostile takeover of Coney Island’. 

She told the Daily Mail that Sitt, who heads up Thor Equities, has been buying up lots and demolishing historic buildings including the historic Henderson Hall, and Coney Island’s oldest structure, the Grashorn Building. 

Solomon said this is part of a plot to clear the way for a huge development by arguing that it would sit on vacant, unused land. 

Solomon accused Sitt of ‘wanting to take the streets away from the millions of working-class people who come to Coney Island to enjoy the summer’ by buying up entire street leading to the boardwalk, which she said has been approved if the casino project goes ahead. 

‘They want to take away their summer to benefit this one billionaire casino developer,’ she said. ‘They would never propose this in the Hamptons.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Thor Equities and Sitt for comment.

The six-member committee, which includes Solomon alongside representatives for Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, and state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton and Councilman Justin Brannan, will vote on the casino proposal later this month. 

If it is approved by the CAC, The Coney bid would then be evaluated by the New York Gaming Facility Location Board, which is in charge of recommending up to three casino licenses. 

The final decision on licensing will be made by the New York state Gaming Commission.