[ Home ]

[ Slots News ]

 Perryville Ambivalent on Slots Question         (2 of 2)

So, understandably, Perryville isn’t jumping up and down with optimism over the prospect of becoming one of five locations for slot machines to be installed in Maryland. The town’s mayor, James L. Eberhardt, scornfully stated that Perryville is not looking to house a “slots parlor” (a term which reeks of ill-repute and conjures images of vice and blight), and would only be interested in the “total package” – a gambling resort that would surround the hundreds of slot games with a luxury hotel, restaurant, and lounges, and encourage other upscale businesses to open in its proximity.

Burkley is working on marketing the potential slot machine complex on behalf of Stewart Associates, a family-run development company that is Cecil County’s largest landowner. The Stewarts have already drawn up plans for a one hundred fifty-acre “tourist destination,” and optioned a West Virginian racetrack and slots gambling company for the right to buy thirty-six acres of the plot for a state-of-the-art slot machine resort. Burkley has seen that promotional pamphlets promoting the idea of the resort are being circulated at Perryville’s City Hall, and has produced a video showing testimony from residents of the West Virginian cities where the slot firm has opened casinos.

Burkley hasn’t had to go so far to sell Perryville’s City Council on the slot machines. A resort like the one being proposed would create eight hundred new jobs (with complete benefits packages) and rake as much as ten million dollars into the local economy. Undoubtedly, a gambling resort of the magnitude being suggested would also raise the small city’s profile tremendously.

Back to September 2008 Archive.