ANTI-GAMBLING crusader Tim Costello has joined locals in a fight to stop a Whittlesea hotel from getting pokies.
The Royal Mail Hotel has revived an application for 30 gaming machines, sparking outrage among local clergy and residents.
The hotel is in the north of the municipality, where there is no cap on the number of poker machines, while the southern area has a cap of 581. But Mr Costello has called for the entire municipality to be subject to a cap.
“It’s not only the spread of machines, we have the most predatory machines in the world,” Mr Costello said. “It’s more poison mushrooms, spreading more social damage in a vulnerable city.
“Local grassroots people have to oppose this because a gaming revenue-addicted state government has forgotten who is affected.”
Whittlesea Community House held the first of a series of protest meetings about the Royal Mail proposal last week.
Spokeswoman Joan Kincade said the community had to resist poker machines.
“Some argue pokie venues put money back into the community, but you have to ask where they got that money from. From the community itself,” she said. “If people lose money then how are they going to give money to the local footy club or buy raffle tickets or a sausage at the sausage sizzle?”
Ivan Peterson, chair of the Uniting Church regional council, said the Whittlesea Ministries Incorporate drop-in centres were seeing people suffering financially.
“You can’t take any more money out of the community,” he said.
Pastor Shane Lepp, from the Assembly of God New Horizon church, said easy access to pokies increased the social problems caused by problem gambling.
“They [pokie venues] do give money back to the community, but it’s the community that must meet the needs of people who are affected [by problem gambling],” he said.
The manager of the Royal Mail did not return calls.
