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Perryville Ambivalent on Slots Question         (1 of 2)

If a planned referendum makes the ballot in time, Maryland residents would be given the opportunity to decide this November if they want to allow a load of controversial slot machines to be allowed in their state. The slot game question has torn the state’s population into two distinctive camps on the matter, but it’s possible that the town of Perryville has more ambivalence regarding the beeping, blinking “one-armed bandits” than almost anyone else. If slots are made legal in the Old Line State, Perryville could become home to a sprawling, one hundred fifty acre casino gambling destination. Pro-slots advocates are trying to sell this casino as a potential savior of Perryville’s flagging economy, but the city’s residents have become jaded by the failure of other such ventures, and aren’t so sure.

The referendum governs the distribution of the fifteen thousand slot machines, and allocates about seventeen percent, or twenty-five hundred of them to any spot along the Interstate 95 corridor running through Cecil County. Perryville has first grabs on the slot games if they want them, but residents aren’t positive that they do. Real estate and development entrepreneur John K. Burkley II is trying to sell Perryville on the idea of a slot machine complex with a bright-stars Hollywood theme. But Perryville has a long memory, and has not forgotten other supposedly-“sure bet” developments that never lived up to expectations and promises. An outlet shopping mall built twenty years ago initially attracted millions of bargain-hunters, but now appears deflated and sad, with a full third of its storefronts vacant. Then came the luxury condos facing the bay, which lured in wealthy visitors, but only during the boating season.

Continue to part 2 here.

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