Grand opening of the new
Eastside Cannery on Boulder Highway

In the end, I decided it was a wonderful thing that I never got inside the new Eastside Cannery tonight. Traffic was heavy on the freeway and completely impossible on Boulder Highway, where policemen were blocking entrances to the new casino’s parking lots because too many people had already tried to park.

Yeah, I could be annoyed, but come on! We’re supposed to be having a recession, and a new casino is drawing mobs! I can’t help smiling that in a city of casinos, the opening of a new “locals joint” is enough to cause a traffic jam. If times are tough, the Eastside Cannery on opening night wasn’t a good place to look for evidence.

With a little more patience and a little more willingness to honk and cut off tattooed dudes in pickup trucks, I could have scored a parking place and a chance to peek inside, but as I inched my way through throngs of people in tank tops and flip-flops, I realized I really didn’t need to see another flashy display of the latest slot machines. They’ll be there next week, the week after that, and, I’m willing to bet, for many weeks to come. I’ll have plenty more chances to check out the Eastside Cannery’s interior.

In the meantime, I enjoyed seeing the mob that turned out to welcome Boulder Highway’s newest casino. The area hasn’t seen a new property of this size in a decade, and this one opened right on time and right on budget. It’s a happy note in a time of gloomy news.