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RESTON, VA — One of the two state legislators who earlier this year introduced bills in the Virginia General Assembly that would have made it possible to build a casino on Metro’s Silver Line in Fairfax County wanted to make it clear that his bill was not a casino bill.
“It’s not a casino bill in terms of mandating one,” said Sen. David Marsden (D-Springfield), during a candidates forum at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus on Tuesday. “It’s to provide a referendum so that Fairfax County citizens could make the decision.”
Patch reported on Sept. 25 that Comstock Companies wanted to build a casino at or near the Wiehle-Reston East Metro Station. At that time, Marsden said he would likely reintroduce the bill if he was re-elected on Nov. 7.

Marsden and his Republican opponent, Mark Vafiades, were fielding questions from the Dewberry Hall audience, when the issue of the casino bill came up.
“That’s what the Silver Line was created for,” Marsden said. “That’s what the business community paid extra taxes for, was to create the Silver Line to do high-density development. We’re losing $150 million a year to MGM at National Harbor. Virginians are going over there. We’re funding Maryland schools.”
Marsden’s opponent offered a different take on the casino question.
“I’m very much against a casino,” Vafiades said. “It tends to tax and when I say tax, I don’t mean from the government. It taxes the people who can least afford it. If you look at the casinos, it’s not really rich people smoking cigars. It’s people that are trying to take what money they have and make it more, and of course ends up the other way around. It’s very bad for those people.”
However, if legislation were introduced that was a true referendum and residents actually got to make the decision whether they wanted to proceed or not, Vafialdes wouldn’t stand in the way.

“It’s up to the citizens of that district, whether they want that casino,” he said. “I’m against casinos in general. I wouldn’t introduce a bill for a casino, but if the citizens decide that’s what they want, then that’s that.”
In January, Marsden and Del. Wren Williams (R-Stuart) introduced and quickly withdrew nearly identical bills that would allow the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to authorize a referendum for voters to decide whether they wanted a casino or not.

Related:
Read all of Patch’s reporting on the proposed casino at the Weihle-Reston East Station at Silver Line Casino.

During an interview in September, Marsden said that Reston Station was one of the sites being looked at, but he preferred Tysons Corner, a view he repeated on Tuesday.

“I believe that it belongs in the Tysons area,” he said. “That’s sort of our downtown. Our commercial real estate market here locally is deteriorating rapidly. These are all 10-year leases on these buildings that people who rent space that they have and people who had 50,000 square feet now want 10,000. People who had 10,000 now don’t want any. Revenue in the county is deteriorating and I’m worried that Tysons Corner will become a ghost town because people are working from home.”
Other legislators from Fairfax County have told Patch they first heard about a casino being considered for the Silver Line sometime in November and December 2022. At that time, Reston was the only location that was being discussed.
However, when the 2023 legislative session started in January, no bill had been pre-filed in either the Virginia Senate or the House of Delegates. Around that time, the discussion changed to Reston or Tysons as being the likely locations for a casino, according to the legislators.
After the candidates forum, Marsden said he did not have any knowledge of the bill until shortly before he submitted it on Jan. 20. He also said he did not know what was in the bill Williams submitted on the same day.
Earlier this month, Williams told WMAL News that he thought the casino should be at Tysons, because many of the office buildings there were vacant following the pandemic. A casino would inject new life into the area.
“Additional tourism, additional entertainment for younger generations and also tax revenue,” he said.
When asked about concerns over a casino attracting unsavory elements, Williams said any future legislation and contracting would be top-tier and prevent crime, according to WMAL’s report.
Marsden told the audience at the candidates forum his bill was about building a conference center in an entertainment district, with hotels and a casino in Tysons that could attract business from the wealthier areas of Maryland, like Potomac and Bethesda, as well as from Northwest D.C.
“It will be great for unions who are going to be constructing these facilities and also great for Unite Here, who does most of the union operations,” he said. “It will create great jobs for the county.”

Virginia is a Dillon Rule state, which means a locality can only do what the state has given it the authority to do. Currently, Fairfax County doesn’t have the authority to put the casino referendum on the ballot. The bills Marsden and Williams submitted in January would have given the county that authority.
“All I’ll be doing is introducing the bill that will get Fairfax County residents the choice to make that decision, because we’re going to have to do something about our economy here in Fairfax, in terms of generating revenue that we need to operate the world-class school system we have, the mental health services we have, which are the best in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Marsden said. “We just need to take a look at the future and realize that things are not always going to be as they have been in the past.”

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