Chants of “We don’t need a casino” interrupt keynote speech being given by Deputy Mayor of Yokohama, Toshihide Hirahara<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Japan.- The first IR Expo in Yokohama<\/a><\/strong><\/em> got off to a fractious start with an anti-casino protester interrupting the keynote address being given by the Deputy Mayor of Yokohama, Toshihide Hirahara. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The protest highlights the divisions between supporters <\/strong><\/em><\/a>and opponents of the IR industry <\/strong><\/em><\/a>in Japan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hirahara was 10 minutes into his address to an audience of more than 300 when a person sitting in the front row put on a helmet with a built-in microphone and began shouting “We don\u2019t need a casino, we don\u2019t need a casino.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As he moved towards the Deputy Mayor, a staff member intervened and asked him to return to his seat while Hirahara continued his address as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another 10 minutes passed before the protester and a friend stood up and walked out of the room while again chanting, “We don\u2019t need a casino.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chants of “We don’t need a casino” interrupt keynote speech being given by Deputy Mayor of Yokohama, Toshihide Hirahara<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"An anti-casino protest disrupted the keynote speech of Yokohama's Deputy Mayor, Toshihide Hirahara, at the first IR Expo in Yokohama, Japan. This incident underscores the significant public opposition and socio-political challenges facing integrated resort (IR) development within the Japanese market. The disruption highlights the ongoing divisions between proponents and opponents of the IR industry, signaling potential headwinds for project timelines and stakeholder confidence.","focusai_entities":"Toshihide Hirahara","focusai_location":"Yokohama, Japan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Project Viability","query":"What are the quantitative and qualitative impacts of sustained public opposition on the projected GGR, NGR, and overall ROI for potential IR operators in Yokohama?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Impact","query":"How might this public sentiment influence the Japanese government's timeline for finalizing IR implementation laws and the stringency of B2B\/B2C licensing requirements?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,16338,156,158],"tags":[29,473,470,337],"class_list":["post-2895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-east-asia-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-casino","tag-ir","tag-japan","tag-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2895"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}