When you think of casino’s you think of big cities, excitement and glamour. People do not normally think of small towns, small business and rural roads. The new mayor of the small town Granjeno, Texas wants to change people’s minds. The mayor wants to see a casino added to the small town to help provide the revenue to secure the town’s people’s future.

The small town of Granjeno is located about a mile from the Rio Grande and has only four hundred and eighty five residents. Granjeno has only one city employee, one bar and an annual budget of only $77,000. Everyone in town either knows each other or they are family.

Granjeno gained a lot of media attention last year when a border fence was planned to be built that would run directly into citizen’s homes and yards. The fence now is being built behind property lines. There is also an international bridge being constructed to the west of the town.

A county corrections officer and also the mayor of Granjeno, Vicente Garza Jr, stated that the city is “surrounded and has no economic development”. Garza thinks the casino is a good idea, “something out of the box”.

The mayor got the idea after thinking about how the city might gain revenue from the traffic generated by the international bridge. The only problem with the idea of the casino is that slot machines and poker tournaments are illegal in Texas. This is what Garza would like to see in the casino.

Garza sent a letter in August to the Attorney General Greg Abbott, asking his opinion on the casino subject. Garza hopes that the state representative Kino Flores will be able to help as well. Flores stated: “If it’s something that they need, I’m going to help all I can. Flores does believe the odds are stacked against the small town with the current gambling laws and Abbott’s opinion on the state’s gambling laws. Abbott has yet to state his feelings on the subject.


- 2008-09-03