Visitors come here to see just one bell – the Liberty Bell. Soon they’ll be
looking for a row of them – on a slot machine. Pennsylvania’s 2-year-old
state gaming board is to award licenses Wednesday for two slot machine
casinos to be built here. That will make Philadelphia the largest city in
the country with casinos and put legalized gaming within 2 miles of
Independence Hall, where the founding fathers gambled their fortunes on
revolution. The arrival of slots parlors here is part of the spread of
gambling through the mid-Atlantic. New Jersey, New York and Connecticut have
casinos. Pennsylvania and Delaware have slots at racetracks, and Maryland’s
incoming governor wants to do the same. In Philadelphia, founded by Quakers
whose religious beliefs prohibit gambling, slots casinos are facing a cold
welcome from the neighbors. In Pennsport, the riverfront neighborhood where
Rene Goodwin lives in a 19th-century brick row house, the elevated bulk of
Interstate 95 separates narrow residential streets from big-box stores and
the city’s container port. One of the casinos is proposed for a vacant site
next to Wal-Mart. “It isn’t this hinterland,” says Goodwin, who leads
Riverfront Communities United, a group of seven neighborhood associations.
Pennsport would be overwhelmed by traffic and crime if the slots parlor is
built two blocks away, she says. “It’s a real place, where people know each
other. . Is it worth destroying one of the best neighborhoods in the city
for a casino?” Five proposals are competing for the two licenses. The
developers include Donald Trump; the Pequot tribe, which runs Foxwoods
Casino in Connecticut; and the owner of Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers.
Four of the proposed slots parlors would be built along the Delaware River,
and the fifth would be across town, closer to wealthy suburbs. Something to
come for Bringing gambling to Philadelphia has long been supported by former
mayor Ed Rendell, who is now governor. Mayor John Street, who leaves office
next year, also supports it as a boost to the city’s tourism business. The
city’s convention center plans a $700 million expansion to be completed in
2009. Street says convention planners already schedule an evening in
Atlantic City for conventiongoers. He predicts the state will eventually
allow table games as well. About half the revenue from the Philadelphia
slots parlors would be money now used to gamble elsewhere, according to the
city’s gaming task force.
“If you want people to live in your city, to live in your region, to bring
their conventions here, to bring their bodies here for vacation, you’ve got
to have something for them,” he says. “I want them to look like casinos, I
want them to feel like casinos. A real casino with all of the opulence. I
want to see a little neon.”
The state’s 54% tax on casino revenue – the highest of the 36 states that
have legalized gambling – is earmarked for property tax relief. And in
Philadelphia, it would allow a cut in the city’s wage tax paid by people who
work in the city regardless of where they live. If casinos ultimately take
in $2 billion a year as projected, the city says it expects a 13% cut in the
wage tax, which is 4.3% for city residents and 3.8% for commuters.
In addition, the city will receive a $25 million “host fee” paid by the
casinos, says Shawn Fordham, a mayoral adviser and executive director of the
city’s Gaming Advisory Task Force. The two casinos are projected to generate
10,000 permanent jobs.
Casino Free Philadelphia has gone to court to try to overturn the 2004 state
law allowing slots. Jethro Heiko, who heads the group, says the public
hasn’t seen the casinos’ final proposals that were modified after the period
for public comment closed. Nor has the state established standards for
neighborhood impact, the lawsuit argues.
“Do we even want Philadelphia to be the next Atlantic City?” he says. “We
already have a lot of good things happening in the city. We’re not
desperate.”
