The Erie Times-News & Presque Isle Downs & Casino

The Sunday, August 26 edition of the Erie Times-News fulfilled its role as an uncritical booster and cheerleader for the new Presque Isle Downs and Casino, a full-blown mecca for local and out-of-town gamblers from the tri-state area.

The lead story on Page One was devoted to a heady celebration of the six month anniversary of the new casino. Since it opened, the Times-News enthusiastically reported, $1 billion in total wagers had been placed, with $900 million returned to gamblers. These lofty totals were considerably higher than the expectations of its owners and the public officials involved in its launching earlier this summer.

The article bore the headline: “A project that (in war type) PAYS OFF.” It ran a total of 145 column inches, including photos (roughly one and one-third pages). The author, Reporter John Guerriero, euphemistically characterized the gamblers as “players.”

This is not one isolated example of journalistic drum-beating. In recent months, the Times-News has published about 50 related articles, most of them lavishly boosting the casino. Makes one wonder whether any one at the Times-News has a financial interest in the casino other than the hefty newspaper advertising it generates.

One hundred and 33 of the article’s 145 column inches were generously laced with superlatives casting a positive spin on the new operation. But only 12 column inches - buried on the jump page at the end of the article – were devoted to the adverse impacts, identified in the article only as “Crime and compulsion” (as in “compulsive gambling.”) While the article copiously quotes supporters and celebrants of the casino, no coverage whatsoever is given to its multitude of critics.

Simply acknowleging the "Crime and compulsion" generated by the casino over the past six months doesn't begin to tell to the community-at-large the true social costs of this high-level gambling operation.

To begin with, one must assess the cost of providing enhanced police, crime -fighting, public safety and anti-compulsive gambling services against the economic gains the article so readily touts. It didn’t come close to doing that.

For example, the article quotes State Police Sergeant Eric Lacey, office commander, as saying he believes “the police presence has deterred crime” at the casino. But he can't verify that any more than he can quantify it. One question that needs to be answered in this context is how many more police officers - state and/or local - were assigned to surveil the casino during its highly-publicized opening, and at what cost to taxpayers, if any? It's a well-known fact that local constabulary are chronically short of personpower, their resources stretched to the limit. Or were they drawn from other law enforcement or public protection assignments elsewhere, thus leaving some segment of the population unprotected and vulnerable?

The article states that 21 crimes committed at the casino had been reported by local law enforcement authorities from the time the casino opened six months ago, through July. But it conspicuously ignored the dog that didn’t bark: how many crimes have been committed that have not been apprehended or reported?

Is there a growing but so far unseen criminal element and activity attracted by the huge sums of money generated by the casino? By definition, of course, no one knows. But that has happened at every other high stakes gambling venue ever established. There’s no reason to believe it hasn’t, or won’t happen here. How much will these adverse impacts escalate once the companion racetrack, a whole new phase of gambling, is in full operation?

The bottom line question which must be asked, but so far hasn’t been: does this high profile private sector development pay its own way? That is, does the share of its gross earnings or profits - reportedly two percent - which is spun off to state and local governments to pay for the real impacts - exceed or fall short of the cost of those impacts to government infrastructure and the local private sector not benefited by casino spin-offs ? Simply citing a six month billion dollar take and one billion payout doesn't answer that question. The issue is whether it's proportional.

Is it development for development's sake, irrespective of whether it imposes more costs upon the community than benefits. No one really knows because there has been no independent, comprehensive and objective cost /benefit analysis.

In addition, any assessment of social costs must take into account a myriad of other impacts on the community's infrastructure and services. These include road and highway traffic, hospitals, public safety, health and medical professionals, schools and colleges, water and sewer, trash and garbage, telecommunications, energy sources, religious and recreational facilities, and water and air quality, to name a few.

For example, higher vehicular traffic volumes inevitably lead to higher levels of frustration and delays, to more accidents, fatalities and injuries, which in turn lead to increased EMT and medivac services, intensified hospital emergency room usage (the highest cost medical services), as well as long term chronic care in home, hospital or nursing homes for traumatic injuries or catastrophic conditions requiring extended care.

This also puts a greater demand upon doctors, nurses and other medical facilities, leading to a deterioration of medical care available to the general non-gambling public.

Ask the residents and business folks on Rte. 97 who have been plagued for months by delays, frustrations and obstructions which the extensive highway reconstruction in conjunction with the racetrack has engendered whether the project is the bonanza relentlessly portrayed in the Times-News columns.

While the sponsors, promoters and supporters of the casino have touted the number of new temporary and permanent jobs the casino has engendered, there’s been no analysis of who’s filling those jobs, whether they provide living wages and minimal benefits, whether local hire initiatives have been accommodated, or whether in-migration has led or will lead to a higher burden on schools, affordable housing and public utilities, thus incurring higher potential costs for infrastructure expansion and development.