The Latest Act of Indiscretion

PITTSBURGH - A Pennsylvania state Gaming Control Board employee was suspended without pay a day after he was arrested for a scuffle with police outside a bar. Town Tavern manager Aidan Kiernan said the incident began when Justin Husar showed his agency badge to a bouncer, asking to be admitted to the second-floor dance club without paying the $5 cover. Husar was let through, but began arguing when he insisted his friends also be allowed in free and the bouncer refused, Kiernan said. Husar is the fifth board employee to find himself in trouble with the law.
Kevin P. Eckenrode, 25, a former press aide, was allegedly dangling girlfriend Rachel Kozlusky, 23, by her wrists outside his Harrisburg high-rise when she slipped and fell to her death Feb. 25 in what authorities have characterized as alcohol-related horseplay. He is charged with criminal homicide. Two employees were charged in connection with separate fights and disturbances outside Harrisburg bars last year. Last month, an investigator was arrested after officials learned his college degree came from an online diploma mill.

The gaming industry in Pennsylvania is off to a rollicking start! Favoritism, "alcohol-related horseplay" and fraud. It sounds like they're going to do an even better job once the casinos open their doors. I've been involved in some alcohol-related horseplay in my life, but none of it involved dangling a girl by her wrists. I guess I've led a sheltered life.

When state governments run out of ideas or ways to tax people, they invariably fall back on casino gambling or a lottery. The concept of instant riches for little or no effort is one that is an easy sell to a lot of people. Some of those people are our elected officials. Why else would someone spend a million dollars to get a job that pays $50,000 a year? For the perks, favored treatment and the ability to dangle a woman out a window and have it called "horseplay".

Gambling has its place, I assume, but I wonder how much better off we are in New Jersey since casino gambling came into our lives in 1977. I voted against it then, and I would vote against it now. The winners are the casinos and the losers are the people who will always be losers. As I have said before, I don't like big business taking advantage of people, and perhaps nowhere is it more evident than in the casino.

Call me "sick", but I don't believe it is the state government's responsibility to oversee lotteries or casinos. Legalized numbers-running and sponsored crap games are taxes on the poor, and God knows there are enough of them already - both taxes and poor - without allowing the government to make more of either.