This time last week, anti-casino troops around the city were gearing up for what promised to be one of the more raucous showdowns of the Sugarhouse debate: A City Council hearing of legislation on Wednesday that, if approved, would finally give Sugarhouse the zoning it needed to begin constuction on its hotly debated Delaware Ave. site. Emails were sent, phone and fax numbers of Council members proffered, and general calls to action were loudly signaled. But come Monday morning, media inboxes all over town were notified that the hearing — which was quite possibly set to be one of the loudest public City Hall shout-downs of the whole nasty, corrupt casino process we’ve all endured — that the hearing was cancelled. Say what? On Saturday, Council made public its cancellation. The reason, Casino-Free Philadelphia speculates, is that Sugarhouse themselves requested the cancellation.

In a press release issued yesterday, the group says that Sugarhouse’s hopes for a slam dunk were dashed after they unsuccessfully tried to force the Fishtown Neighborhood Association (FNA) to the bargaining table for a community benefits agreement. (The other neighborhood group involved here, the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association [NLNA], has staunchly refused to sit down with Sugarhouse at all, ostensibly waiting until zoning has been granted and they have to.) At the heart of Sugarhouse’s failed strongarming of the FNA is an even deeper black eye for the casino: A faux neighborhood group called FACT (Fishtown Action, which sounds like something else altogether, frankly) that Sugarhouse is rumored to have propped up with financial support as well as the promises of untold numbers of dead-end jobs for its members. Ah, the noble, eyes-wide-open working class of Fishtown, right? In spite of FACT’s obvious padding — and its failed attempts at anti-casino activist intimidation — Casino-Free Philadelphia claims resistance to Sugarhouse in the neighborhoods has grown even stronger as Sugarhouse’s tactics have grown markedly dirtier. But we have to ask: With the Street administration’s influence waning by the day, and public opinion turning ever more in the “no fucking way” direction, when would be a good time for that hearing, guys?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:38 am.