Promise: Arundel slots vote Dec. 21 

Posted: 7:13 pm Tue, December 8, 2009
By Nicholas Sohr
Daily Record Business Writer

The Anne Arundel County Council will take up the Arundel Mills slots parlor proposal on Dec. 21 mostly replenished, but much divided over what would be the state’s top gaming destination.

The Council declined to vote on the proposal Monday night at the conclusion of a nearly five-hour meeting during which 99 people signed up to testify from the sea of onlookers wearing green pro-slots and red anti-slots T-shirts.

“I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Councilman Jamie Benoit said Tuesday. “It’s anyone’s guess.”

The votes scheduled Monday were delayed because only four council members were present. Zoning bills need four votes to pass. Councilman Joshua J. Cohen left his seat to be sworn in as mayor of Annapolis earlier in the day, and Chairman C. Edward Middlebrooks had recused himself last week, citing unspecified connections to parties tied to the proposal, leaving only five members to cast votes.

The Council appeared poised to move ahead with five until it was announced Councilwoman Tricia L. Johnson would not attend due to an urgent health issue.

The Council will interview and select a person to fill Cohen’s seat on Dec. 17, and the new member will be sworn in Dec. 21, leaving a board of six to decide the slots issue.

“We’re voting on it on the 21st,” Benoit said. “One hundred percent chance. We’ll literally bang the gavel, swear in the new member and vote on slots. That’ll be the night to do it.”

Council has two zoning bills on its agenda, one that would allow for the casino next to the mall and another that would limit gaming in the county to sites south of Route 32, effectively eliminating any proposals at Arundel Mills.

Benoit, a slots opponent, said he will vote against both bills. Vice Chairman Ronald C. Dillon Jr. supported the Arundel Mills proposal at Monday’s meeting while Daryl Jones and Cathleen M. Vitale pushed for the competing legislation, leaving both bills’ paths to four votes in doubt, even with six members voting.

Nevertheless, Joseph Weinberg, president and principal of Cordish Cos., the Baltimore-based developer that submitted the Arundel Mills proposal, said after the meeting he was “still optimistic that we’ll be able to get this thing through.”

Cordish did receive conditional approval for a casino with 4,750 slot machines earlier Monday night from the Video Lottery Facility Location Commission, the state body tasked with awarding the five casino licenses in the state.

On Monday night, Jones and Vitale echoed the sentiments of many in the racing industry and from the neighborhoods surrounding Arundel Mills.

“I think it was understood and expected that the slots facility would be at a horse racing track and not at a mall,” Jones said.

The Laurel Racing Association submitted a bid for the Anne Arundel slots license but the commission threw out that bid because neither Laurel nor its parent company, Magna Entertainment Corp., submitted a required $28.5 million application fee. The company has been fighting the commission’s decision in court, and challenging the portion of state law upon which the rejection was based. Magna filed for bankruptcy on March 5 and its properties, including the Laurel track, are scheduled to be auctioned in January.

Horsemen and racing officials issued dire warnings to council, forecasting doom for their industry.

“You’re at a crossroads. We’re at the end of the road,” said Wayne Wright, executive secretary of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “We will not survive if slots are put in competition with thoroughbred racing.”

Supporters of the Arundel Mills proposal questioned the push for slots at Laurel Park, holding up the mall site as the only viable option on the table.

“If Laurel was here with a viable bid, one that complied, one that made the financial commitment … we’d be in a very different situation,” said Dillon, the council vice chairman.

He added later: “I don’t know if there ever will be an appropriate bidder, and that scares me.”