They’re going great guns.
Astonished, the locals ask, “How do they do it, these Seneca gods?”
“Without taxes” — that’s the answer.
The casino and their complex, and the infrastructure leading to it, were paid for, directly or indirectly, by tax-paying Americans — while Seneca pays none.
With 50 acres and the ability to open any business, the casino is merely the tip of the iceberg.
“The casino?” the locals asked dumbfounded. “I thought that was all they got.” It displaced a convention center where out-of-town people convened, then went to hotels and restaurants. It became a foreign casino, but tourists hardly come. The gamblers — by Seneca design — are mainly middle-and low-income locals.
Ironic — the convention center made money for locals from out-of-town people, the foreign casino that displaced it makes money for out-of-town people (Seneca and Albany) from locals.

Reincarnated as a slot machine? The Seneca Niagara Casino, gifted to Seneca for $1, used to be our Convention Center. People who remember their past lives are apologizing for what they did to
Seneca back in 1794. “We people in Niagara Falls really cheated the Indians,” says one person referring to his past life in 1827. “It’s about time we did something to make it up to them.”

A Global First: Niagara Falls, N.Y. The only place in the world where they get 17 million tourists annually and are broke.

Here’s Seneca’s formula: Win from a large number of petty, regional — especially, local — and regular gamblers, $50 to $100 at a clip. It’s called “the grind.” More lucrative and easier than attracting the big-time “gold-tooth” gamblers, as are believed to be flocking to Las Vegas, “the grind” attracts the tinsel-puff version: shabbily dressed, unglamorously inelegant, grotesquely unlearned, often unshaved, sometimes unwashed, always sans suit and tie — these, who know nothing of the laws of probability, these are the ideal customer/sucker. You can scan the whole place and not find one of them smiling, 4 million times a year — on average $85 poorer every time.
Here’s how Seneca came to town and became billionaires. They “ground” from 11,000 average daily visitors about $1 million profit per day.
It’s harmed us immensely. In five years, more than a billion of regional people’s monies lost, the ice skating rink, the convention center and nine restaurants gone.
People opt to dine at glamorous Seneca restaurants where tax-free food gets them more for less. At local taverns, too, they lost customers — both from New York’s smoking ban (at Seneca you can smoke freely) and because Seneca gives free drinks on the gaming floor (a smart psychological move since drunks bet more freely). More than 20 taverns closed since Seneca opened its doors.

The problem, however, is not merely the diversion of discretionary dollars from the local entertainment economy into gaming, but the fact that Seneca is expanding into non-gaming businesses.
While they pay Albany only on slots, Seneca opened a tax-free buffet, a pub, a “high-end” steak house, an Italian restaurant, an Asian restaurant, a glamour spa, a conference center, a bistro, a coffee shop, a nightclub, a 26-story, 604-room hotel and gift shops galore.
While Americans pay sales tax, income tax and property tax, Seneca pays nothing, while selling sweatshirts, baseball caps, T-shirts, sweaters, jackets, golf wear, costume jewelry, plush toys, jewelry, blankets, sculptures, TVs, high-end electronics, DVDs, golf clubs, cameras, diamonds and more.
More stores are coming, and the effects have not been seen.
The Seneca Niagara Hotel, the largest in the area, with deluxe rooms and pillow-top beds, ought to impact this season. Local hotels would have pillow-top beds, too, if they paid no property tax, sales tax, income or bed tax. On slow nights, with 604 rooms, Seneca can offer tax-free, luxury rooms at the same price that mid-quality, tax-paying U.S. hotels can offer.

Looming large over downtown Niagara Falls is the property, sales, income and bed tax -free Seneca Niagara Hotel. Is it a coincidence that since it opened four tax-paying hotels within its shadow have closed?

And what new business would, in a highly taxed and declining city, want to invest and compete against a tax-free nation next to it? If people drive miles to rural reservations to save a few dollars on cigarettes and gasoline, imagine how far they’ll drive when Seneca has as many stores as the Galleria Mall. How will the Galleria and its stores compete when they pay $3 million a year in property taxes and upwards of $20 million in sales tax, if Seneca opens a tax-free mall? “Well, at least we’ll get hotel spin-off,” some (fairly stupid) locals think.
The Sheraton Millennium Hotel — accommodating overnight Galleria shoppers — gets spin-off from the Galleria. The Sheraton also pays $2 million annually in taxes.
But will local hotels get spin-off as more people visit the tax-free nation and their stores adjacent to downtown Niagara Falls? Seneca has its own hotel.
“Still, once that’s filled, we can get the leftover crumbs,” say servile local hopefuls.
But Seneca plans to build two more hotels, one with 800 rooms and another with 450 — all tax-free.
“But can we fight back?”
We could burn tires and blockade roads — like Seneca does when it want to make a point. We could charge tolls on roads into Seneca or sue Albany on the faultiness of a compact that left locals on an insurmountably uneven playing field. We could organize local businesses to protest and demand equality — and vote accordingly.
But one stumbling block to equality is the politically correct apologists who want Seneca to have legal preferences over us because Seneca is “our victim.”
Bewildered, honest Americans ask, “Why does a person, because of his race -- and tribe — have a legal advantage over other Americans?”
“Because of what Columbus, Custer and others did,” the apologists say. Referring to people long-dead with similar skin hues, they add, “ ‘We’ savaged the Native Americans.”
But who is this “we”? Was it my ancestors? They were in Italy at the time.
Logically, the argument that, because of race or ethnicity, I, you or “we” should be responsible for deeds done prior to our birth falls to pieces — unless, of course, they’re referring to reincarnation. For my part, I wasn’t in Niagara Falls in 1794. I first came in 2004.
Nevertheless, some people believe they owe the debts of their ancestors who they erroneously think “stole” Niagara Falls from the ancestors of Seneca. Factually, the Neutrals, a peace-loving Indian tribe, occupied Niagara Falls until the mid-18th century, when Seneca came and wiped them out. Seneca never historically occupied Niagara Falls. They “stole” Niagara Falls and squatted here a mere 50 years before karma caught up and the Europeans threw them off.
For those still tormented because of the sins of their ancestry, I suggest it’s time you stopped feeling guilty for the manhood of your European-American ancestors. Seneca’s ancestors were warriors, too. If your ancestors conquered them, kindly remember they would have conquered your ancestors, as they conquered the Neutrals, if they had had the strength.
The difference is, had Seneca won, it is unlikely they would feel guilty about it. Ask any one of them if they think they should share their gaming profits with the descendants of the Neutrals.
But all of this rather tepid brand of idiotic debate doesn’t change the torrid fact that one group because of their ethnicity has an astounding legal preference over everyone else.
For those strong enough to understand it: It’s time to demand “equality with Seneca” now!

Frank Parlato Jr. can be reached at frank@frankreport.com.