Just the possibility of legalized casino gambling has caused an outbreak of sleazy activity in Chicago.
We`re not talking here about more kids pitching pennies on the sidewalk or mothers going to the track with the milk money.
We mean the tawdry show put on by those protectors of our civic virtue:
Channel 5 News, the Better Government Association and the self-appointed Chicago Metro Ethics Coalition.
Talk about sleaze! At least in Las Vegas the honky-tonk is up there in flashing lights for everyone to see. In Chicago last week, our would-be moral guardians did their sleight of hand in a Methodist church under the guise of investigative reporting.
In case you missed the show, Channel 5 and the BGA got their hands on a roster of Illinois legislators put together by pro-casino lobbyists. The list noted each lawmaker`s disposition toward legalized gambling.
It`s the kind of tally sheet any lobbyists worth their pay would keep, whether the client is looking for more homeless shelters or a wider state highway to Galena. Never intended for public view, the list described lawmakers variously as ”lame duck,” ”sensitive to Lake Forest CEOs” and
”likes to make deals.” One state rep was dismissed as ”disliked by almost everyone.”
I have no problem with making the list public, assuming it was legally obtained. It would have made a good peg for a story on the inner workings of the lobbyist`s trade. But that`s not how Channel 5 and the BGA used it. On a crusade against what they`ve determined are the evils of casino gambling, they hyped their ”explosive” documents as the ”secret casino papers,” treating them like corruption`s smoking gun.
”We had no choice but to dig deeper and get at the truth,” said J. Terrence Brunner, the executive director of the BGA whose flair for publicity ranks with boxing promoter Don King`s. He was presenting his ”findings” to the Metro Ethics Coalition, a group of business leaders and clergy who seemed not to mind their bit parts in Brunner`s carefully timed show Tuesday at First United Methodist.
Brunner reviewed (and previewed) all five parts of his TV expose. It attacked the notion that a casino complex in Chicago could be run on the square or bring legitimate jobs to the city. BGA investigators used a hidden camera to film a (pre-arranged) group of underaged college students drinking beer while playing video poker at a Las Vegas casino. Another segment featured a female investigator who worked undercover for a week as a $45-a-day-plus-tips keno runner. Every night, said the narrator, she ”had to be cinched into a revealing toga” and submit to lewd remarks made by gamblers and even a casino security guard. Case closed.
Now don`t get me wrong. I`m not making light of underage drinking or sexual harassment. Nor is this an apology for lobbyists dumb enough to leave their private notes unguarded.
It`s just that none of this made-for-TV stuff, as titillating as it might be, throws much light on whether casino gambling would be good for Chicago.
The real issues here-the costs versus the benefits-don`t make for exciting television. We can only hope our legislators will turn off their sets long enough to sift through the things that matter.
They`d find out that there are, in fact, some trade-offs involved.
The $2 billion casino complex would bring in its wake certain kinds of criminal activity, especially prostitution and loan sharking. But it also would bring, according to city estimates, 7,700 construction jobs and 38,100 permanent jobs, a good many of them at union scale.
The casino would divert some traffic away from the state`s racetracks and newly commissioned gambling boats. But it also would generate more than half a billion dollars a year in new city and state taxes.
There are ways for alert lawmakers and city council members to bend these trade-offs in the public`s favor. For starters, there should be no public subsidy for the project. And the casino-through license fees or special assessments-should be forced to pay not only the cost of regulating the gaming, but also of curbing any crime it might attract. To placate the racetrack owners, parimutuel taxes could be lowered or off-track betting parlors brought into the casino complex.
The city also should have final say over the location of the complex and its design.
As for the morality of legalized gambling, that question has been answered already. Illinois is knee-deep in gambling. Besides racetracks and riverboats, we have the Illinois State Lottery. It is a long-shot scam that preys on the desperation and naivete of those who can least afford to play.
Maybe the Metro Ethics Coalition should appoint itself to investigate Lotto.
