1619-5-6 Casino issue expected to get on 1986 ballot. expects it to be incorporated today or tomorrow and to be registered as a
political action committee within a week.
Once that happens, Kennedy said, County Choice can begin raising and
spending money.
County Choice already has signed up two political consulting firms that
had worked with Citizens for Jobs.
One firm is Winner/Wagner & Mandabach, of New York and California, a
veteran of referendum campaigns in 18 states over the past eight years. "We've
been retained to provide overall strategy advice and to produce and place
advertising, " said Paul
Mandabach, one of the partners.
Kennedy said the other firm is Washington's Peter D. Hart, which handled
polling for 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale.
Kennedy and Muss said they believe the current casino proposal avoids
unpopular features that helped turn Florida voters against a 1978 casino
referendum.
Kennedy said County Choice will urge the passage of enabling legislation
that would avoid the creation of "a Las Vegas or Atlantic City" in Florida by
forbiding such things as neon advertising.
In Miami Beach, he said, gambling wouldn't be a cure-all for the area's
economic ills, "but it would provide another amenity to help draw tourists. "
And, with appropriate state regulations, he said, Miami -- like London --
would be able to offer casino gambling without endangering its status as a
respectable financial capital.
Muss said he wants Florida voters to make "an informed choice" and hopes
they "won't listen to any rash promises by the pro-casino people or any rash
accusations or scare tactics by anti-gambling people."
KEYWORDS: MB ECONOMY GAMBLING SUPPORT OPPOSITION
TAG: 8601040654
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inn CASINO ISSUE EXPECTED 12/01/1984
THE MIAMI NEWS
Copyright (c) 1984, The Miami News
DATE: Saturday, December 1, 1984 EDITION: WEEKENDER
SECTION: PAGE 1 PAGE: 1A LENGTH: 132 lines
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: ROBERT JOFFEE and STEVE KONICKI Miami News Reporters
MEMO: A NATION OF GAMBLERS
CASINO ISSUE EXPECTED
TO GET ON 1986 BALLOT
* South Florida parimutuel operators worry casinos would kill their
business, Page 6A
On Nov. 4, 1986, if major Gold Coast hotel interests have their way,
Florida voters will be asked to add 187 words to their state constitution,
including "baccarat, blackjack, craps, keno, poker, roulette, slot machines"
and "casino gambling. "
However, as many of the same hotel interests learned six years ago, it's
a lot easier to put a casino-legalization amendment on the ballot than to
persuade people to vote for it.
The 1978 pro-casino campaign, the only one that ever resulted in a
statewide vote, was opposed by a powerful array of seemingly divergent
interests, including parimutuel operators eager to protect their monopoly on
legal gambling in the state and fundamentalist religious groups convinced that
all gambling is immoral.
Voters defeated the proposed amendment in all 67 counties, including
Dade, where it got its start.
For the current drive, which began seven weeks ago, the hotel interests
have formed a political action committee called Citizens for Jobs and Tourism
Inc. Backing includes the owners of the Gold Coast's larg
cluding Miami Beach's Fontainebleau-Hilton and Doral,
and Hollywood's Diplomat.
Unlike the 1978 campaign and subsequent abortive pro-casino efforts in
1982 and earlier this year, the Jobs and Tourism campaign is seeking an
amendment that does not appear to be tailormade for the Gold Coast -- the
state's most depressed tourist area.
"One of the problems with legalizing gambling is that throughout the
state it has been perceived as being good for Miami Beach, " said Miami Beach
political consultant Gerald Schwartz, who is not connected with the effort.
"We need to show that it is good for Florida -- or it is not really something
that is going to get people in Panama City excited. "
The Jobs and Tourism proposal would permit casino gambling in any county
where voters authorize it in a separate initiative referendum -- but, even
then, only in hotels with 500 or more guest rooms.
The coiumittee already has raised more than $400,000 and spent more than
$200, 000 for a petition drive aimed at putting casinos on the 1986 ballot.
On Nov. 6, when Floridians were voting for president, 860 people hired by
the coRalittee showed up at polling places in southern and central Florida and
collected more than 148,000 signatures. Although more than twice that number
will be needed to qualify for the 1986 ballot, the Jobs and Tourism committee
still has more than 21 months to finish the job.
"We think it should take us only about six months to wrap it up, " one
committee activist said last week. "Of course, there's no hurry. "
Meanwhile, the Jobs and Tourism committee's effort apparently has not yet
moved far enough to elicit any public effort on the part of those opposed to
legalizing casino gambling in Florida.
"The opponents aren't saying anything because they don't want to fan the
flames, " said another political activist in touch with many of them, a man
firmly opposed to casino
legalization.
At this point, the opponents feel any controversy about casinos will
simply give free publicity to the petition drive, the activist said, adding,
"I think it will easily succeed in getting on the ballot anyway. "
The 1978 opposition, virtually certain to reappear if and when the
petition drive nears its goal, was heavily bankrolled by parimutuel operators,
who were certain that casinos would take business away from their horse and
dog tracks and jai-alai frontons.
There was also potent opposition from chambers of commerce, whose members
feared that casinos might taint the state's image and impede business growth;
from law-enforcement officials, who warned that casinos might be accompanied
by organized crime;
from fundamentalist Protestant and other religious groups, convinced that
gambling is immoral; from social-welfare advocates concerned about adverse
social consequences; and from elected officials, most of whom had strongly
anti-casino constituencies.
Gov. Bob Graham, a longtime vocal opponent of gambling,
plans to stand steadfastly in the way of anyone who wants to bring roulette
and craps to Florida.
"The governor will work against it as vigorously as he has in the past, "
said his spokesman, Jill Chamberlain. "Our office is sensitive to the fact
that legalized casino gambling would have a negative effect on crime
prevention and a strong
criminal justice system. We want to place the emphasis on good paying jobs
with diversified industry and better public schools. "
Pro-casino forces claim such arguments are hypocritical.
Because Florida already has an abundance of pari-mutuel betting, Diplomat
Hotel owner Irving Cowan argues, "I don't see how you can say one form of
gambling is OK and another is not. This notion of half-gambling is like saying
you are a little bit pregnant."
Voters are most likely to approve casino gambling in Florida once they
understand that Miami is already a center for casino gambling, Cowan said. He
was referring to the use of the city as a way station for gamblers headed for
casinos aboard cruise ships or in the Bahamas. "Those gamblers don't even
spend a night here. They just fly in and fly out, " he said.
There are indications that, during the past six years, the Florida
electorate may have become less hostile to the idea of legalizing casino
gambling.
Hundreds of thousands of new voters have been added to the rolls in
Florida. They include young professional "yuppie" singles with big
entertainment budgets; middle-class Northern white ethnics resettled in
Florida for Sun Belt jobs; and newly registered Cuban exiles: all groups
thought likely to provide enthusiastic customers for casinos if they ever open
here.
In an October 1983 poll of 781 registered Florida voters, the Gallup
Organization of Princeton, N.J., found 52 percent would favor legalizing
casino gambling in the state if the resulting revenues "were spent only on
education and other social services."
According to Schwartz, a new casino campaign, after qualifying for the
ballot, eventually would pick up support from a broad cross-section of the
tourist industry, including bus, taxi and rental car companies; restaurants;
and the operators of attractions "like the Seaquarium or the Monkey Jungle. "
Yet the opposition to casinos, for the time being, seems much stronger
than the support, according to two prominent political consultants who
insisted on anonymity. "If you want to do political consulting work for anyone
else in the state, " said one of them, "you'd Setter not work for casinos.
Almost all the establishment leaders are against them. "
Political lobbyist and sometime-consultant Steve Ross, a part owner of
the Fontainebleau-Hilton and a close friend of its principal owner, Steve
Muss, said he hears people talk about legalized casinos "every day." He said
he is not involved in the Jobs and Tourism effort, even though Muss is among
the backers.
"You want to know the chances of it happening?" ,
he asked "Nil. I'll give
10 to 1 odds that it doesn't happen between now and1990."
If casinos ever do come to Florida, one likely effect on the Gold Coast,
according to Diplomat hotel owner Irving Cowan, would be the demise of many
small, outdated hotels and motels along the oceanfront.
"If the profits were there, corporations would buy up whole blocks and
tear them down and build an 800 to 1,000 room hotel, " Cowan said. "The profit
potential is the greatest motivator for urban renewal I know of.
"You might even be able to see the ocean again, with proper setbacks and
landscaping. That could be ensured through (gambling) legislation."
KEYWORDS: GAMBLING LEGISLATION MN SERIES
TAG: 8402050239
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