The noisy, beer-chugging 18-to-25-year-old patrons at The Stickman`s, a popular tavern here, are among the targeted voters that riverboat gambling backers hope to get to the polls Tuesday.
But if anyone will be there for sure, it`s more likely to be the Stickman himself. ”I`d like to see it, but they could care less,” says the Stickman, a name that owner Keith Renkosik earned in his far skinnier youth.
It is businessmen like Renkosik who are key supporters of a referendum on riverboat gambling to be held in Davenport Tuesday, which local analysts say is too close to call.
Supporters see it as a key to downtown revitalization and development, and a splash of excitement and color that will draw more tourism. For opponents, however, it is a siren song that will disrupt families, increase crime, and bring down so much misery and woe that before long the whole town will be singing famed local trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke`s tune, ”The Davenport Blues.”
”This is our future they`re talking about,” said Billy Martens, promotional director for a coalition of churches, citizens and dissenting businessmen and politicians. ”We need to get rid of riverboat gambling before it starts.”
Across the river in Illinois, supporters of riverboat gambling are hoping the opponents prevail in Iowa and that the Illinois General Assembly approves the idea in October-so Illinois can beat Iowa to the revenue on the Mississippi.
Government-sanctioned gambling is spreading rapidly across the nation, stirring fears among many that states are nurturing a rising social addiction while become addicted themselves to the revenue they receive from gambling without raising taxes.
Iowa`s plunge into gambling has come as a special surprise. In a few short years, it has changed from a state that raided bingo and duck pond games to one that approved parimutuel betting at horse and dog tracks, several lottery games, and casino gambling on riverboats.
After a narrow victory in the state legislature that approved riverboat gambling in April, riverfront counties are now holding referendums on whether to allow gambling boats to tie up at their docks in 1991, when the law takes effect.
Of the 10 Iowa counties that abut the Mississippi, three have already voted in favor. The Tuesday vote is of special interest in Scott County and Davenport, because they are part of the Quad Cities, an Iowa-Illinois metropolitan area with a combined population of about 400,000.
If Scott and three adjacent counties voting Tuesday all give their approval, riverboat gamblers will have a nearly contiguous three-quarters of the state`s Mississipi coastline on which to try their luck.
Gambling supporters say this will give Davenport and the Quad Cities area an injection of economic vitality and hope.
”The economy here still feels the effects of the mid-1980s, when we lost a sizable number of manufacturing jobs,” said Larry Reed, director of Davenport`s Chamber of Commerce. A study commissioned by the chamber`s Riverboat Task Force found that one large gambling boat could generate $50 million a year in tourist spending.
Opponents argue that the area is already on the rebound, that most of the lost jobs have been replaced, and tourism is already up.
”The community is in much better shape now than it was four or five years ago when this thing was conceived,” said state Rep. Hugo Schekloth, a Republican from nearby Eldridge. ”We`ve had a tremendous increase in tourism without gambling.”
Opponents also argue that even limited-stakes gambling will attract criminals and prostitutes. ”I think it will overflow my jail,” said Scott County Sheriff Forrest Ashcroft.
According to proponents, the gamblers may largely be blue-haired women, student-age youths, assorted tourists and other rank amateurs out for a little gaming fun on a mock stern-wheeler. A $5 bet-per-hand limit and $200 loss limit per trip will keep serious gamblers away, they contend.
What supporters say they have in mind is family-type entertainment that will harken back to another era, when steamboats were a frequent sight on the Mississippi.
”In Iowa we`re going to keep our wholesome image. We`re going to regulate it very closely,” said Lorenzo Creighton, deputy administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.
The Mississippi`s golden era of steamboats in the 1850s pretty much came to an end with the Civil War, the coming of the railroad and steel span bridges.
Gambling back then ”was abhorred, but unregulated,” said Marlys Svendesen, a local historian. Illegal card and dice games were started by traveling gamblers, who sought to win money from immigrants headed for Minnesota. But as late as the 1940s, there were illegal slot machines and other games on ferries and other boats that plied the river, Svendesen said.
The new Iowa riverboats with legalized gambling would be required to have designated areas for children, and there may be entertainment and historic costumes for crew members.
”We want people to come here to have a good time and not get hurt fianancially,” said Bernard Goldstein, president of Alter Co., a Davenport river barge and scrap metal firm. ”The riverboat gambling is just a tool to get a bigger tourist business built up.”
Goldstein has proposed $50 million in developments that include a Mississippi river theme park on a 100-acre piece of riverfront in nearby Bettendorf, a hotel in downtown Davenport, two large riverboats and a scenic 19th Century return train ride from Muscatine.
Local excursion boat companies say competition will compel them to get into the gambling boat business whether they want to or not. Out-of-town operators, such as San Diego-based Fried/Schegan and Associates, and the New Orleans-based Delta Queen Co., majority owned by Sam Zell of Chicago`s Equity Group Inc., have both announced their interest.
Opponents predict that the betting limits will quickly give way if the Illinois legislature passes riverboat gambling. Such a bill-proposing high-stakes gambling-passed the Illinois Senate this year but twice failed to get past House Republicans. There will be another push in the legislature in October.
Hearings are set for late September in Springfield, said state Sen. Denny Jacobs, a Democrat from East Moline. The emphasis of the new bill is expected to focus on the Mississippi, in the hope of beating Iowa to the punch, and on the Illinois River near Peoria. Whether the bill will include other waterways, such as the Des Plaines River in Will County, remains to be seen.
If the bill is approved, Jacobs said, ”I think Iowa will have to up the ante. It will just be a matter of time.”
