Penn Gaming and the "Free Press"

Penn National has problems with the media/"Free Press" at most of their locations. Penn National takes offense whenever the media points out where Penn's broken promises. Perhaps if they want to control the media's First Amendment rights they should stick to building casinos in Macau, China. Case in point; Penn National in Columbus, Ohio where Penn National took offense to the Columbus Dispatch's questioning the pumping of raw sewage so close to drinking water and the Baltimore Sun's questioning of Penn National's trying to take the license from a successful, Baltimore based casino developer.

Columbus Dispatch- Suit asks Court to force casino-site annexation 3/10/2010 (by Doug Caruso) 

Dispatch Printing, which publishes this paper, also asked Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David W. Fais  to declare trucking sewage from the casino or burying it onsite a nuisance and to halt construction until Penn National agrees to annex and hook up to city sewer and water lines.

A spokesman for Penn National called the court filing bizarre.

"It should be obvious at this point to any thinking person that The Dispatch has gone far beyond any definition of journalistic integrity and has simply decided that, instead of reporting the news, it intends to create its own news to reflect its owners' personal opinions," said Bob Tenenbaum, a spokesman for Penn National.

"it now appears that the jobs and the tax revenue notwithstanding, the newspaper itself is going to do everything in its power to prevent the casino from ever being built."

Excerpt from Penn National's Earnings call transcript 10/21/2010:

Peter Carlino- "Yes, one of the problems for us has been the Baltimore Sun, which is completely in the back that they reported. Their behavior through this process has been virtually scandalous. I don't think ever in our experience around the United States in any of these efforts have we ever seen the most outrageous behavior by a newspaper. To say it flatly, it's been amazing, and it sort of shocked us everyday. So that's been sort of a difficult process, the free press can't stop the fight.