Viewpoint: Anti-casino group is sincere, but lacks any solutions for a drowning city

Picture a drowning man at the beach. A mysterious stranger extends a hand to save him.

“No thanks, I’m good,” the victim says as the water line gurgles up to his nostrils. “I think I’ll wait for the lifeguard. He’s more reputable and more qualified.”

This is what is being expected of Springfield by the group known as Repeal the Casino Deal. The organization has already succeeded in winning a State Judicial Court ruling that puts casino gambling on the November state referendum ballot.

Representatives of the repeal group met with The Republican and Masslive.com this week to state their case. Their sincerity is not in question.

A true grassroots faction, they have turned an apparent casino victory into a horse race. Victory at the polls would gain them nothing beyond the validation of their conviction.

What they are asking of Springfield, however, is to keep out the casinos in favor of the status quo. Given that the economic status quo stinks, quite frankly, that request is grossly unfair.

It would be one thing if Springfield were in position to pick and choose its method of growth. That seems more true of Greater Boston, which has hoarded its economic rebirth while leaving Springfield and Western Massachusetts to fend for itself.

Worse yet, the statewide referendum will be decided mostly by voters in Eastern Massachusetts, since that is where most voters can be found. For this voting bloc to decide Springfield’s future is decidedly undemocratic and unfair.

The repeal group’s argument is multi-faceted but can be boiled down to two areas: don’t trust these guys, and gambling is bad.

Pointing to Atlantic City and other gaming-saturated metropolitan areas, they argue with conviction that once the gambling industry has gained a foothold in other cities, their promises to those cities have been broken.

Maybe true. They haven’t broken any promises to Springfield, though, because they haven’t had the chance.

That is more than can be said for decades of broken promises by Boston politicians who promised to give Western Massachusetts some attention, or by industries who have found reasons either to leave or stay away.

Now the city is being asked to move forward without the casino while those other potential allies, notably the Boston politicians, essentially say, “Don’t worry. We’ll get around to you.”

Calling the casino a key component to economic policy “is a sad commentary,” said Scott Harshbarger, a former state attorney general and key spokesman for the repeal group.

That’s true. Sadder still is expecting Springfield residents to trust that keeping out the casino would assure an influx of less controversial and more easily regulated businesses.

Springfield and Western Massachusetts have waited decades for the economic boom in Greater Boston to filter down the turnpike. It hasn’t happened yet. There is no evidence it will.

Nor is there evidence that political promises from Boston to the western sector will carry any more substance than they have since, oh, forever.

It takes some chutzpah for churches and state officials to raise moral questions, but that is a significant part of the opposition, too. Because gambling, you see, is addictive and evil.

It is, or certainly can be. But it is hard to listen to that argument while churches run bingo and the state runs enough lottery games to cover a wall at your local Cumberland Farms.

Faced with the glaring hypocrisy of this argument, the anti-casino faction argues with some truth that casinos offer ATM machines, free drinks and other ways of luring patrons that can have devastating effects.

Lottery gambling can devastate households, too, though perhaps to a lesser degree. There remains something distasteful about standing on principle in increments, and wagging your finger at the evils of others while your own state is running its own action.

The anti-casino group is right about one thing. Expecting a gambling palace to solve all of Springfield’s problems is foolish.

That doesn’t make it right to eliminate the chance to tackle at least some of them. Realistic people do not look at the casino as a first step to economic glory but as a last and desperate hope for a city that has no other strong options on the horizon.

Most confounding is the notion that by accepting a casino, Springfield is somehow slamming the door on all other methods of economic growth. Throwing out the casino does not guarantee an influx of other, more conventional industries.

if that were true, a casino-free city would have enjoyed that influx by now.

Nor does accepting a casino preclude growth in industry, manufacturing or service fields. If better options for economic growth exist, they will still be welcomed even if the casino is built.

They always have been. They just haven’t shown up in a city that is tired of waiting.

Don’t blame the casino proponents, or for that matter the gaming industry, for deciding not to wait any longer.

Economically, the city is drowning. The repeal group’s concern is sincere, but there is nothing either principled or practical in telling Springfield to rebuff the helping hand of the stranger in hopes the lifeguard will come along soon.


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