The Power of Words. Bob Kerr: You can bet that this idea is a sure loser.

3/30/98
You can bet that this idea is a sure loser

By BOB KERR
Journal-Bulletin columnist

       Okay, Providence, what's it going to be, the renaissance or the casino?
       You can't have both. The casino comes in, and the renaissance stops before it starts. The gondola turns into a cigarette boat.
       Casinos go to places that have no reason to hide their desperation, places that have been down so long that anything looks like up.
       Like Detroit.
       Once a great city, the centerpiece of industrial America, Detroit had a vicious riot 30 years ago and went into a slide that it never completely pulled out of.
       Detroit offers the perfect setting for a casino. The blight is already there. The city has approved not one but three casinos.
       If Providence wants to join in the same kind of nothing-to-lose, crapshoot approach to development, it has only to concede that it simply isn't a place where new ideas can flourish. It has to admit that it just doesn't have what it takes to attract the kind of businesses and the kind of people that nurture possibilities rather than suck them dry.
       Because once the casino comes in, other things don't. And some things that have been around for a while, things with a little seasoning, disappear.
       Among the really bad sales pitches for anyone trying to sell a city to a potential new business is this one: ". . . and let me show you our beautiful casino."
       There is, however, the possibility that a man or woman will eventually try to pawn a Winnebago if a casino comes to town. It is just one of those wild, fevered things that happen when that old, beat-up gambling demon stumbles in.
       And let's not forget those other small tank town dramas that play out on the dimly lit fringes of a casino: the man in the sweat-stained suit cadging nickels to turn into quarters to feed into the slot machines; the woman led from a video poker machine after 20 straight hours of playing and an increasingly severe tendency to slap herself on the side of the head.
       The latest gambling tease, as so many before it, is brought to us by the Narragansett Indians, who are starting to resemble door-to-door salesmen who won't take no for an answer.
       Actually, it's the Narragansetts and Sen. Dominick J. Ruggerio who are making the latest casino pitch. They want a casino in Providence. And the Narragansetts are throwing money around like it's not real. Which it isn't.
       That's the wonderful thing about casino proposals. They have almost nothing to do with reality.
       The latest toss of Monopoly money includes $6 million to $8 million in new property taxes for Providence and a whole big bundle for schools and property-tax relief.
       It's not enough. There has to be a new car for every city resident over 21. And free pizza on Fridays.
       (The Narragansetts insist that the Rhode Island Convention Center is not the place where they want to put their casino, which pretty much puts the lie to all those rock-solid reports that every electrical outlet in the convention center is designed for slot machines.)
       Governor Almond is wisely opposing the casino and is rallying others to do the same. Mayor Cianci is being a little coy. He apparently wants to use the casino threat as a bargaining tool to get more money from the state for his financially strapped city.
       But when the games are over, the casino comes up a loser. It doesn't take a trip to beautiful downtown Atlantic City or the Mississippi River towns that embraced gambling to know that a casino does not spread the wealth, it sucks it up like a vacuum.
       The money that is left behind in the machines and at the tables is money that would have gone to restaurants, car dealerships, dry cleaners, barber shops, bakeries . . . And some of those places will close.
       After a while, unless it's stuck in the middle of nowhere, a casino leaves a place sharply diminished from what it used to be.

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