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Forgotten Md. Town Eyes a Future Revised
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"We see this as a plague," said the Rev. Harold Phillips, pastor of Pleasant View Baptist Church in Port Deposit, a tiny, onetime ferry crossing town on the Susquehanna. "They're gift-wrapping this issue with very pretty bows. But we are the ones who pick up the pieces after gambling ruins lives." Church leaders are fighting slots hard, arguing that legalizing gambling will only create gamblers, not keep existing ones home.
Others say they do not want to watch already strapped neighbors throw their money away.
"I'm like, what's the point?" said Rachel Wagner, 19, chasing her 2-year-old niece across the plaza of the outlet center. Wagner, who works at the local Subway, said: "Maybe it will give a lot of elderly people around here something to do. But I don't like it."
Penn National officials have begun public meetings with area residents, pitching the company as an economic boon for a community hungry for jobs. They have promised as many as 600 jobs from food service to accounting, with opportunities in management and salaries of as much as $40,000 a year.
And the company is working to erase the unsavory image of gambling. The target patrons in Perryville will be women over 55, officials tell residents.
"For us it's an economic issue," said William Eberhardt, the town mayor and a slots supporter.
The flow of money across the state border is hard to quantify. But a study last year by the Delaware Lottery, which regulates the state's racing and slots operations, found that Marylanders make up 42 percent of the patrons at Harrington, Dover Downs and Delaware Park. With the threat of legalized slots in Maryland and Pennsylvania on its way to installing 61,000 machines at 14 racetracks and stand-alone parlors, the Delaware legislature has raised its slots cap to authorize thousands of new machines, and the facilities are upgrading and renovating.
At Delaware Park, a 20-minute drive up I-95 from Perryville, Maryland license plates were hard to miss in the parking lot Tuesday afternoon. Fred Lunn, a heavy equipment operator from Baltimore County, had just arrived for his annual birthday outing. He had $300 in his pocket and would spend no more. He had spent $10 in tolls to get there, plus gas. "Sure, I'd play in Maryland," he said. "The tolls are outrageous."
Even Elizabeth Kafka, a nurse from Harford County who said she would not feel comfortable playing in Perryville because it's a low-income area, acknowledged that she and her husband would probably end up going there on their twice-monthly gambling trips.
"It's closer," Kafka said, watching the horses race while her husband played the machines inside. "It's that simple."
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