Voters Reject Table Gaming for Charles Town Casino

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- Voters yesterday defeated a proposal to allow blackjack, poker and roulette at Charles Town Races & Slots, a racetrack casino that attracts many customers from Maryland and Virginia.

About 56 percent of Jefferson County voters who cast ballots rejected the referendum to allow table gambling, county officials said. The vote was 5,626 to 4,429.

Approval would have cleared the way for Penn National Gaming Inc., the company that owns the racetrack casino, to move forward on plans to open 75 to 80 gambling tables. The operation, which generated about $485 million in revenue last year, has about 5,000 slot machines, and the horse track runs about 220 days each year.

In Jefferson County, yesterday's referendum provoked debate on economics, morality, and even traffic congestion.

The question, State Del. Robert C. "Bob" Tabb (D) said, was "about the amount of revenue that was going to stay in the county," as well as "how Jefferson county might change if this were an area where table games were allowed."

Jefferson, the easternmost county in West Virginia and the home of Harpers Ferry as well as Charles Town, is on the Potomac River just west of Loudoun County. About 60 miles from Washington, It is often considered part of the Washington metropolitan area, and according to recent census data, grew about 20 percent between 2000 and 2006.

Ohio County, on the western side of the state, which has been losing population, ratified the proposal.

The gambling measure would have generated an estimated $1.5 million a year for construction in the fast-growing school system. Advocates said the measure also would yield millions of dollars more for local government by expanding the property tax base. More money would also go to the state.

But opponents argued that much of the financial gain would be offset by increased public safety costs and that higher traffic volume would overwhelm already-busy roads. One flier from an opposition group also warned of risks to gamblers: addiction and bankruptcy.

Chris Colbert, president of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed the measure, said that the racetrack casino is Charles Town's "economic foundation" and that the addition of jobs would benefit some residents who commute to the Washington area to work in construction, landscaping and other jobs.

The casino "hires more people than any other industry, Colbert said before the vote.

But Renny Smith, 67, a retired foreign service officer who owns a horse that once raced at the track, said she worries that the table games would bring too many visitors to her fast-growing community. She is part of a group that opposes the measure and said she would vote against it.

"Something in this is bothering my inner Baptist," she said. "It's not that I mind the racetrack, but I don't think our community is ready for table games. We just don't have the infrastructure."

This spring, West Virginia lawmakers approved a bill legalizing table gambling at four racetrack casinos, contingent on local approval. It was the third straight year the legislature took up the issue, which never had enough support until this year. The other tracks are in Hancock, Ohio and Kanawha counties. Ohio County, which has been losing population, ratified the proposal yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

State Del. John Doyle, a Democrat who represents Jefferson, voted for the bill in the legislature because colleagues in other parts of the state said it would give their localities an economic boost. He said he had no "philosophical opposition" to gambling but did not think it should be allowed at Charles Town, and has spoken against the referendum.

"We're not given enough tax revenue from the gambling to handle the impact," he said. He also said the county would have to hire more police and emergency workers.

Charles Town Races & Slots last year had about 4.5 million customers, about two-thirds of whom came from Virginia and Maryland, said John Finamore, a Penn National executive. About 5 percent were from West Virginia.

Staff writer Martin Weil contributed to this report.