More gambling gets cautious local support in New Hampshire

by Adam Krauss

February 14, 2010 | Foster's Daily Democrat | Rochester, New Hampshire

Photo: EJ Hersom

Stephen Pappajohn, center, expresses his thoughts on casino gambling during a forum in Rochester Saturday.

Note to those eyeing allowing slot machines in New Hampshire: you've got support, but the deal is hardly done.

If a six-hour meeting Saturday among nine area residents and one person representing a horse doctor proved anything, it's people think expanded gambling can be a boon to the state's finances without devastating its quality of life. They also made it clear people aren't willing to hand the store over without guarantees on the quality of jobs and protection for businesses.

The meeting was one of 11 "What's at Stake" community conversations that took place across the state Saturday, including in Portsmouth and Laconia, to let residents sound off on the pros and cons of expanded gambling before a study commission presents a report to Gov. John Lynch.

Bruce Mallory, a University of New Hampshire education professor who helped organize the conversations along with the UNH Carsey Institute and Cooperative Extension, said on average between 15 and 30 people attended each of the conversations, while 45 showed up in Salem.

In Rochester, the conversation was facilitated by Steve Pappajohn, who runs the teen center in Dover.

City resident Joe Casey, the business manager for IBEW Local 490, said he supports an expansion because it will create construction and service jobs and provide the state with needed revenue. But he recognized "it's still a gamble to set up a casino."

His point got the group discussing whether the state or private investors should run "racinos" — race tracks with slot machines. He said the private sector would do better in the promotional department and if plans didn't pan out the state wouldn't be left in the cold.

"That's a risk I don't want New Hampshire to take," he said.

Lisa Stanley, a former city councilor who runs a wholesale plumbing and heating supply company, said "it's disingenuous to say the state will make a total mess of it." She expressed trouble understanding why the state would settle for licensing fees and increased tax revenues when it could own the facilities and reap all of the benefits.

"Because the government doesn't do anything well," said Sid White, a local insurance salesman.

The group at times found themselves at odds with state Rep. Dennis Vachon, D-Strafford, who expressed his long-standing opposition to expanded gambling but said he would be willing to consider a state-run facility in the North Country if it was geared around tourism. He expressed concern with gambling interests creating a monopoly with undue influence.

"The problem is you will have a private interest with a lot of money and they control the process," he said. He also questioned whether the state would experience some of the social ills, such as prostitution and drug abuse, that he said plague states with widespread gambling.

That didn't go over well with Dave O'Brien, a retired restaurant management teacher who regularly gambles and lives in Nottingham.

"I go to Seabrook three times a week and I have not see that," he said, referring to Rockingham Park. He later added, however, "I'm not going to tell you that some guy isn't going to commit domestic violence because he had a bad night at the table. It's going to happen."

"It's going to be Joe Six-Pack who's pouring money in there rather than buying milk and bread for his kids," Vachon said.

O'Brien said that was an unfair characterization. Some people enjoy spending their money on a round of golf and some enjoy gambling, where, he said, "I have the opportunity to make some money rather than having it go down a brook."

Stanley said "generally speaking it's a small percentage" of people who could develop gambling-related issues, "so you have to weigh the costs against the benefits."

"You're minimizing the social costs in order to justify that it's good," Vachon said.

Not so, Stanley countered. "People are going to destroy themselves no matter what" and some of the projected revenue would help the state combat issues such as addiction whereas today there's little help on that front, she said.

O'Brien blasted what he viewed as hypocrisy on the state's part for promoting liquor sales at its stores while hedging on whether to allow expanded gambling, especially since Granite Staters already travel out of state to try their luck.

According to a report by the N.H. Center for Public Policy Studies, in 2008 Granite Staters poured $261 million into the state lottery, $225 million at the race tracks and $128 million into charitable gaming and, based on a report out of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, $80 million at Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

"All you have to do is look at the buses that leave every day" for Connecticut, said White, who believes people are free to spend their money how they see fit. "Farmington has a bus. Rochester has a bus. Dover has I don't know how many buses."

Joe Manocchia and his wife Diane Ellis-Manocchia, Barrington residents active in horse breeding, said New Hampshire should stop exporting money out of state and stands to benefit from gaming tourists because of other attractions found here.

Cyndi Paulin, a Farmington resident who works in community development for a Carrol County nonprofit, said before a decision is made the state needs to know whether revenue projections will come true and whether the benefits will help local communities without hurting low-income people.

To that point, Stanley advocated for "restrictions" in state law to ensure an expanded gambling facility doesn't include hotel and restaurant accommodations that are the "be all and end all" for visitors.

She and Casey also said there needs to be a way to ensure the newly created jobs pay a good wage and provide health benefits.

"We should say you give a good-paying job or no job at all," Casey said.

Janet Prescott, a Newmarket resident and business development director at an area hospice, said people need to understand that no matter how many jobs are created they won't cure unemployment woes.

Lawmakers are set to consider whether the state should go from a place that allows horse and dog racing, charitable gaming and operates a lottery to one that could be home to 17,000 video slots if six proposed locations licensed the maximum number of machines as provided in legislation, which would also allow table gaming. Hudson, Salem, Seabrook, Belmont and two sites in the North Country, possibly Lincoln and Berlin, are the proposed locations.

Along with thousands of jobs, the state could get $220 million a year if all of the sites are licensed, proponents say.

Mallory said he'll have a sense of what took place later this week. He has to present a preliminary report to the state Gaming Study Commission March 16. A final report is due April 20.

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100214/GJNEWS_01/702149861/-1/FOSNEWS