Equipping the choir: Activist organizes gambling opponents
U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts speaks Thursday, along with Dianne Berlin of Casino Free Lancaster.
By Chad Umble
Published Jan 27, 2006 14:32
But she said the choir needed to be equipped for an upcoming fight against a proposed downtown Lancaster casino.
Roughly 40 people attended a meeting of gambling opponents held in the basement of Grandview United Methodist Church on Pleasure Road. The church is less than a half-mile from the 75-acre Burle Business Park, which is one of the alternative sites where casino partners have also considered placing the slots casino.
Next to a wall of six church banners lauding virtues such as “sharing” and “giving,” Berlin discussed the evils of all forms of legalized gambling.
“Gambling is no more than the exchange of wealth. On the street, if we weren’t gambling, you would call it robbery,” said Berlin, a Penn Township resident who is vice chair of the National Coalition Against Legalized gambling.
Berlin, a veteran of the unsuccessful mid-1990s fight to keep an off-track-betting parlor out of East Lampeter Township, said a casino in Lancaster City wouldn’t deliver on its economic promises.
“There will be a sleighful of promises. But they are empty promises and they will cost us a bundle,” Berlin said.
If a casino is built, crime, bankruptcies and suicide will increase while jobs leave, Berlin said.
Berlin urged residents to write letters to the editor (keep it brief, she advised), attend upcoming state Gaming Control Board and city zoning board hearings (bring a sign, she suggested) and sign anti-gambling petitions.
She told residents to oppose gambling in all its forms, and not just the slots casino proposal in Lancaster.
“You have to fight it all ... you don’t just point at one part,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts stopped by the meeting for about 30 minutes, speaking briefly and passing out his own information about the negative effects of casino gambling.
“I’m here to support Dianne and her efforts in building a grassroots effort against the casino,” Pitts said.
Near the end of the meeting, which lasted roughly an hour and a half, the audience split into discussion groups.
Scott Fisher, executive director of Lancaster County Council of Churches, who led the faith community group, said the proposal didn’t even make good business sense.
“This effort (to bring a slots parlor to Lancaster) flies in the face of everything convention and business bureaus are trying to do,” he said. “Gamblers are not tourists.”
Brad Brunner, one of the few city residents to attend the meeting, said he wanted to see what he could do to fight the proposed slots parlor.
“No one ever wins,” he said. “(Gambling) ruins lives.”
The meeting drew at least six members of the media.
Berlin said that the turnout, while not huge, wasn’t a disappointment.
“What you learn to do is be appreciative for the people who have cared enough to turn out,” Berlin said.
The anti-slots-parlor group will meet again Thursday at 7:30 p.m., again at Grandview Church.
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