1619-5-11 Casino friends , foes gird for high - stakes vote . they can go to the tennis courts or to the sauna."
We are at a crossroad. Ask yourself, "Can we afford this risk?" Let's not
be taken in by the lure of easy money. This disaster can be avoided by simply
saying "No" on Nov. 8.
Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber, a former judge, is Dade County chairman
of No Casinos, the statewide anti-casino campaign. He wrote this article for
The Herald.
KEYWORDS: OPINION STATISTIC
TAG: 9403150327
134 of 285, 42 Terms
mh CASINO FRIENDS, FOES GIRD FOR HIGH-STAKES VOTE 12/27/1985
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1985, The Miami Herald
DATE: Friday, December 27, 1985 EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: lA LENGTH: 210 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Miami Beach marquees supported casino GAMBLING
in 1978 (-LEGALIZED DADE)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: MARK SILVA Capital Bureau Chief
DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE
MEMO: see also THE EIGHT BIGGEST BACKERS, LIFTER profile,
WORDING 12A
CASINO FRIENDS, FOES GIRD FOR HIGH-STAKES VOTE
Pat Mason of Hallandale won $1 million, her prize for pulling three
sevens on a slot machine in Las Vegas.
Jim Teets of Loxahatchee is pocketing a $100, 000 check once a year for 10
years, thanks to his winning night at Nevada's Barbary Coast Casino.
Now, big money is riding on the perennial bet of a handful of hoteliers •
that Floridians like Mason and Teets someday will stay home, and that
thousands of tourists will flock to Florida, to take their chances at the
Sunshine State's own casinos.
Floridians again will have a chance to vote, next November, on casino
gambling.
And once more, the political, religious and business leaders who scuttled
an attempt to legalize casinos seven years ago promise a new crusade.
"This state, with all of its problems, has a bright future. I don't think
you can do anythingbut cloud it with casino gambling," says former Gov. Reubin
Askew, who led the overwhelmingly successful fight against casinos in 1978. "A
state that seeks to build an economic base on exploiting the weaknesses of
its own people -- that does not represent sound thinking."
The persistent, big-spending hotel owners who have campaigned for a
decade to open Florida to casino gambling count on finding new support among
newcomers. More than a third of Florida's residents are new to the state since
voters crushed casino gambling nearly three-to-one in 1978.
"When our politicians come out and say (casino gambling) is no good for
Florida, I could spit in their eye, " says Sunny Isles Resort Association
president Charles Rosen, a longtime casino advocate. "Our hotels are getting
old and broken down. They're closing up. We need to get hope for the area. "
Casino backers are placing their money this time on a new proposal:
allowing casinos to open only in the largest hotels, with 500 rooms and more,
and only in counties where voters approve them locally. They also have a jump
on the opposition this time, with the casino campaign under way early in the
year and traditional opponents still in disarray, lacking a leader.
Casinos will face plenty of opposition: Florida's $2- billion-a-year
legal gambling industry -- the horse tracks, dog tracks and jai-alai frontons
-- will rally again against the competition of casinos. Catholic leaders will
arouse moral sentiment. Dade State Attorney Janet Reno, pledging "an active
role, " says she will alert Florida's prosecutors to the casino threat.
Politicians fear the foothold that casinos offer crime -- both organized
and freelance -- in Florida. Gov. Bob Graham says casinos "attract more of the
element that we are trying to get rid of in terms of organized crime and other
criminal activity -- the darkest underside of society. "
Hoteliers, arguing that crime already flourishes in Florida, say
state-regulated and carefully controlled casinos pose no new threat. Instead,
they promise prosperity: an expanded economy, new tourism, new tax revenue.
Unlike 1978, when voters statewide were asked to allow casinos in a
16-mile strip from Miami Beach to Hollywood, the 1986 ballot asks the state's
voters to allow casinos in any county where voters want them locally. If the
state measure is approved in November, supporters will have to conduct new
campaigns for county-by-county casino votes sometime in 1987 or 1988.
County option
"It's a local county option. The polls say this makes it more palatable, "
Hollywood hotelier and casino advocate Irving Cowan says. "It's truly a
statewide issue, and each area of the state can do what it wants."
A Miami Herald poll last January found Floridians divided:
* Statewide, 50 percent favored casino gambling for the new state revenue
it might provide, and 46 percent opposed it.
* Among residents of Southeast Florida, the balance tipped in favor of
casinos: 60 percent in favor, 40 percent opposed.
* Among Dade residents, support ran 74-26.
* The longer people have lived in Florida, the less likely they were to
support casinos. Residents of five years and less favored casinos 59-41.
Four million of Florida's 11 million residents are new to the state since
1978, according to a University of Florida researcher.
"Now that there are polls showing the public favors it, there might be a
better chance, " says Fort Lauderdale hotelier and casino advocate George Gill.
"People like to vote for a winner."
The governor scoffs.
"That's basically the way it appeared in 1978, " says Graham. "In the
spring and summer of 1978, the polls indicated that the pro-casino forces had
a significant lead . . . . But I am optimistic the same result will occur."
The new casino drive is led by some of the same hoteliers who helped
finance the $3 million campaign for casinos in 1978. A group of eight South
Florida hotel owners and developers have
bankrolled a $600, 000 petition-gathering campaign to get casino gambling on
the ballot.
"Gambling is really a ticket to making this area able to survive, " says
Bennett Lifter, owner of the Marco Polo Hotel in North Dade.
Stands to profit
Lifter, treasurer of the organization "Citizens for Jobs and Tourism, "
has pumped $91, 000 of his own cash into the casino campaign. Like other
hoteliers financing the campaign, Lifter stands to profit from it.
They propose limiting casinos to hotels with 500 or more rooms. Lifter's
Marco Polo has 509 rooms.
"I do have a special interest, " says Lifter, acknowledging his supporters
also have "a very special interest. They put a lot of money up to get it
started. But the benefits will flow to other hotels. "
Steve Muss, owner of the 1,250-room Fontainebleau-Hilton on Miami Beach,
has invested $90, 000 in the casino campaign. The 1, 170-room Diplomat Hotel in
Hollywood has contributed $65,000. George Gill, owner of the 505-room Sheraton
Yankee Clipper in Fort Lauderdale, has put up $50,000.
Supporters say the 500-room requirement -- the same as in Atlantic City,
N.J. , where 10 casinos have opened since gambling was approved in 1976 -- is
designed to ensure that only responsible hotels operate casinos.
In Dade County, only 14 hotels are large enough to qualify. In Broward,
there are five, in Palm Beach two. Orlando has 16.
"I don't know of any hotel in our area that fits the requirements that
would not be interested in a casino, " says Bernard Resnick, director of Miami
Beach's Deauville Hotel, which has contributed $42,557 to the campaign.
Since Atlantic City's first casino opened in 1978, the formerly declining
resort town has seen $2.7 billion in capital investment and 37,000 new jobs.
The city attracts an estimated 28 million visitors annually.
Atlantic City decay
But while casinos have thrived, Atlantic City has decayed.
"The casinos have built 10 wonderful facilities, " Nicholas Russo, active
in Atlantic City's Jaycees, said last year. "But look at the rest of the city.
It's a toilet. "
Casino advocates here say Florida can learn from Atlantic City's
mistakes, while avoiding the infiltration of crime notorious in Nevada.
"I don't think we'd have the feverish gambling atmosphere of Las Vegas, "
says Resnick. "We're selling a different ambiance."
"As long as you regulate gambling to keep out organized crime, " Lifter
says, "it is something that can be very beneficial economically. "
Diplomat co-owner Irving Cowan says: "When you start thinking in terms of
what (casino gambling) can generate, in employment and the ripple effects
through the economy, there has got to be a plus there. "
Advocates have not begun calculating the 1986 campaign's economic
promises. In 1978, with casinos proposed only in a limited area, the casino
campaign's economists projected that casinos could generate 200, 000 new jobs
by 1990. They promised $467 million in new state and local tax revenue.
The ballot proposal authorizes the Legislature to regulate and tax
casinos. Campaign chairman Andrew Rubin says: "While we don't provide for a
specific revenue, we can only presume the Legislature will tax it. "
Florida's taxes on horse tracks, dog tracks and jai-alai frontons raised
$124 million for the state last year.
The pro-casino campaign is organized, with its petition drive completed,
much earlier in the election season than it was in 1978. Opponents, once
rallied behind Askew, find themselves without a leader now.
Graham's role
Graham inherited the presidency of No Casinos Inc., the coalition of big
businesses, banks, insurance companies, media and religious leaders led by
then-Gov. Askew in 1978. Graham stepped in on Oct. 27, 1981, amid renewed and
finally failed efforts by casino backers to get another vote in 1982.
Graham declared then: "In 1978, when I was a candidate for governor, I
promised the people of this state that I would oppose any future casino
proposal as vigorously as Gov. Askew opposed the proposal on the ballot that
year . . . . I intend to keep that promise. "
Now Graham, eyeing his own campaign for the U.S. Senate next year, is
recruiting a new leader for No Casinos, which still has $125,000 in the bank.
"I don't think that I can give it the sort of attention that is
necessary, " says Graham, "and also be faithful to my responsibilities as
governor and increasingly being involved in a political campaign. "
Askew, expressing disappointment in Graham's withdrawal, says his private
law practice will prevent him from leading the opposition again.
"I feel just as strongly now as I did in 1978, " Askew says.
"Unfortunately, I am not in the same position to lend that kind of leadership
to it . . . . I am not sure what, if any, role I will play."
There is no shortage of opponents.
Big businesses such as banks, insurance companies and newspapers
throughout the state fought casinos in 1978. Media companies contributed more
than $180,000, including $35, 000 from Knight-Ridder Newspapers and its
executives. Knight-Ridder owns The Miami Herald.
The Catholic church fought casinos, too.
"The Florida bishops issued a strong statement against casino gambling
(in 1978) . Certainly there is nothing that has changed, " says Tom Horkin, a
spokesman for the Florida Catholic Conference.
But "this time it's going to be more difficult to get organized. The last
time, Gov. Askew was in office and led a very vehement campaign."
Stiffest opposition
Some of the stiffest opposition comes from within the already-pervasive
gambling industry. Last year, Florida's six horse tracks, 12 jai-alai frontons
and eight dog tracks -- operating in 20 of the state's 67 counties, from South
Florida to the Panhandle -- counted 16.5 million customers.
Douglas Donn, president of the Gulfstream Park Racing Association in
Hallandale, says the horse track his family has operated for 40 years will be
"put out of business" if it has to compete with gambling casinos.
"They (casinos) are in the same business, but they do it much more
effectively, " says Donn. "They clean out people quickly, so they don't have an
opportunity to go to another pari-mutuel once they've been to a casino. "
"When you lose one person, your revenue goes down, " says Dick Donovan,
president of World Jai Alai in Miami, which operates four frontons in Florida.
"There are only so many discretionary entertainment dollars."
"There's no place in the United States where casinos and pari-mutuels are
compatible," says Cliff Herrell, a Tallahassee lobbyist for the Greyhound
Track Owners Association. "It's a hell of a lot easier to walk into the casino
and play the old one-armed bandits. "
The new casino vote may also face competition from another gambling
issue. Education Commissioner Ralph Turlington hopes to place a proposal for a
state lottery, with proceeds benefiting the public schools, on the November
ballot. Turlington's committee has begun its petition gathering campaign, but
hasn't yet submitted signatures to elections officials for verification.
Turlington, like other state leaders, opposes casinos.
Tale of two cities
"There are a lot of differences, " says Frank Mirabella, managing
Turlington's campaign. "Let's take two cities out west. One has lotteries and
no casinos: Phoenix. The other has casinos and no lottery: Las Vegas. Which
town would you rather live in and raise a family in?"
Before the year is out, Lifter says, casino supporters probably will have
to spend $3 million to $5 million on the new campaign. Chairman Rubin, who
also is Lifter's nephew, says television commercials alone will not sway
voters.
"I'd like to think that the way to win this campaign is on the merits of
the issue, which will be gotten through to the public on a good program of
informed debate, " says Rubin, whose own polling finds public support for the
proposal. "One thing the poll did tell us is, there is a hard core of people
who are opposed and will not change -- one-third of the people. And one third
are strongly in favor. We are fighting over the middle third."
KEYWORDS: PROFILE HISTORY RECAP OPINION FLORIDA GAMBLING REACTION DECISION
ELECTION MD GROUP FINANCE
TAG: 8504120873