A Gateway Or Obstacle To Reviving Baltimore?

Southwestern Site Divides Officials

This report is the last in a series on the five potential locations for slot machine gambling in Maryland.

The southwestern gateway into Baltimore is hardly an appealing one.

Route 295 dumps motorists onto Russell Street, where boarded-up windows and low-slung industrial buildings present themselves left and right. Beer cans and crushed glass litter the curbs. The impression is jarring and misleading, arriving as it does ahead of the city's signature stadiums, Inner Harbor and new office buildings.

City leaders say they have a way to help bring the area more in line with the civic jewels beyond it: slot machines.

"It's ripe with potential," Demaune Millard, chief of staff for Mayor Sheila Dixon, said of how a possible gambling parlor could induce more investment in the area.

The question is what kind of investment.

Slots boosters say that just drawing people into the area would enliven it. A well-run gambling operation could usher in restaurants and hotels and attract Inner Harbor tourists a shuttle bus ride away.

Others fear construction of quick-loan operations and pawnshops.

"Slot machines are like a lottery on crack. They're far more addicting," said Del. Curtis S. Anderson (D-Baltimore).

This kind of debate is taking place across the state. In November, voters will be asked whether to authorize up to 15,000 slot machines in Allegany, Anne Arundel, Cecil and Worcester counties and Baltimore. Perhaps no venue is quirkier than Baltimore, which prides itself on the adjective.

Charm City would get up to 3,750 machines, second only to Anne Arundel. Two big questions for Baltimore: