In the weeks before Ohio votes on whether to allow casino gambling in four major cities, Cavs majority owner Dan Gilbert is making his pro-gaming stump presentation all over Northeast Ohio. Two weeks before Election Day, he spoke in the Warehouse District, part of the downtown Cleveland area that stands to reap the benefits — or sustain damage — from Issue 3.
The proposed amendment to Ohio’s constitution would green-light four
full-gaming casinos, one each in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and
Cincinnati. Gilbert’s company would be in charge of Cleveland and
Cincinnati. At the Warehouse meeting, longtime residents, competing
businessmen, regional allies and commuters gathered at the KA
Architecture Design Studio for a Q&A with Gilbert. Opinions were
split.
“As a downtown resident, I’m concerned about the sleaze factor,”
said Beth Giuliano, an Old Stone Church Arts & Community
Development representative, who voiced concerned about an
increase in strip clubs and gambling addiction.
Gilbert has been quick to dismiss the threat of increased crime, but
his response actually suggests, yeah, there will be more.
“Let’s say [the casino creates] 8 million more visits,” Gilbert told
Scene in an earlier interview. “Proportionately, crime could
actually go down. In surveys, they say, Well, there were 12 auto thefts
before, and now there’s 70, so it’s up 500 [percent]. But now you have
8 million more visitors driving their car in. So percentage-wise, it
actually goes down.”
Another member of the audience identified himself as a downtown
worker since 1977 and holder of Cavaliers season tickets. “One of the
main reasons I’m voting for issue 3 is that I believe in Dan Gilbert,”
he said.
It’s a popular sentiment. Compared to the last four failed
proposals, Gilbert’s looks better. He’s won surprising allies and met
predictable resistance. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Akron Mayor
Don Plusquellic back the amendment, though Youngstown Mayor Jay
Williams loudly opposes it. Labor unions, including the UAW and
AFL-CIO, are behind the project, which proponents say could create
around 5,000 temporary construction jobs in Cleveland.
In the long term, a casino could have lasting impact on downtown
areas like East 4th Street, the Warehouse District and the Flats.
Projections, studies and conventional wisdom suggest that a casino
would either help or hurt the rest of downtown. The key is whether
visitors venture outside the casino itself.
The Ohio Licensed Beverage Association and the Bowling Center
Association of Ohio have publicly opposed the amendment, claiming that
it will funnel money into the casino and away from other businesses.
Nonprofit booster-marketing group the Cleveland Downtown Alliance has
endorsed it. Some business owners hope for the best. Some expect the
worst.
Even Gilbert’s presentation acknow-ledged one of the louder voices
in dissent: Pickwick & Frolic owner Nick Kostis, who’s often
informally identified as “the mayor of East 4th Street.” As he told Fox
8, “We are not against development or gambling. We are simply against
going out of business.”
Henry “Hank” LoConti has owned the Agora for 44 years, and more
recently partnered in Golic’s sports bar on West 9th Street.
“Am I going to vote for the casino? Yes,” LoConti told Scene. “Why? Because I don’t want to lose it. Am I going to like what they’re
going to do? No. But I think maybe once the door’s open, they’ll find a
way of spreading the income to more than just one entity.”
It’s a narrow proposition, but that’s what happens when you let
business legislate its own interests.
At the Warehouse District meeting, LoConti asked whether a Cleveland
casino would have a 24-hour liquor license — unlike the downtown
bars, which stop serving at 2 a.m. As written, the amendment wouldn’t
provide an exemption from local liquor laws. LoConti told Scene that if there are going to be major changes involving drinking and
gambling, they should benefit more than just new casinos.
“I would rather see everybody that holds a [liquor] license in the
state of Ohio participate — not in the gambling, but at least in
the slots,” says LoConti. “More than a casino, the state has to learn
that on Friday and Saturday, your bars have got to stay open until 4, 5
in the morning. That will bring them more money than a casino will.
You’ve got thousands and thousands of restaurants, and only four
casinos.
Steve Zamborsky is the founder and general manager at Fat Fish Blue,
one of the bigger bar-restaurants in the shadow of the proposed site of
the Cleveland casino, which would be near the Quicken Loans Arena, by
the Cuyahoga River. He’s ambivalent about Issue 3, but thinks he’ll
vote for it.
“There’s risk,” acknowledges Zamborsky. “People only have so much
disposable income. If people go into a casino once a month and shoot
their wad, that might be money they might spend in two nights out in
little places like Fat Fish Blue. [But] as a business owner who lives
seven minutes out of town, I believe we’ve got to do something to get
cranes on the horizon in Cleveland. If Gilbert is the one who can get
something moving, I have to vote for it.”
As Gilbert previously told Scene, “Ohioans vote with their
feet every day” by going out of state to spend an estimated $1.7
billion in gambling-related money. Gilbert’s group estimates Issue 3
could keep $1 billion of that in Ohio. Tino Roncone, partner at West
9th Street’s Anatomy and a 10-year veteran of Cleveland nightlife,
agrees.
“I think it’s a good thing for Ohio,” says Roncone. “I think it’s a
good thing for Cleveland. My family’s from Youngstown. There’s a bus
that leaves every day from the Giant Eagle parking lot with 60 people
on it. It goes to the Mountaineer Casino is West Virginia, to Erie, to
Niagara. If there’s a casino downtown, more people are going to come
downtown. Some people will stay in a casino for six, seven hours. Most
won’t. They’ll go to a restaurant or nightclub.”
At the press conference, Gilbert was pressed for an example of the
kind of synergy he’s projecting between a casino and surrounding
neighborhoods. Gilbert pointed to New Orleans. Later, restaurateur
Zamborsky provided a more comparable example. Zamborsky says he spent
time with relatives in St. Louis in the 1990s, when the riverfront area
Laclede’s Landing was a booming district, much like a mix of the 1990s
Cleveland Flats and Columbus’ historic German Village. Riverboat casino
gambling was legalized in 1992.
“I was there to see it,” recalls Zamborsky. “The casinos and
riverboats sucked the life out of [the area].”
St. Louis restaurateurs still have varying opinions on whether the
city’s five casinos help or hurt land-based businesses in the long
term. As with Cleveland’s best guesses, there’s not a clear consensus.
But the St. Louis restaurant managers Scene talked to skewed
positive. And 17 years later, unlike the Flats, Laclede’s Landing is
still busy.
“I think [business] spills over [from the casinos],” says Libby
Baer, bar manager at St. Louis’ Tigin Irish Pub. “If someone’s going to
the casino at 7 or 8, you find people aren’t going to stay there until
4 or 5 in the morning. When they leave, they’re going to be in a good
mood or a bad mood, and they’re going to be looking for a drink either
way.”
Gilbert has never promised that a casino would reverse the city’s
fortunes. “The most important thing to understand is this is not going
to be a savior of Cleveland,” he says. “It’s going to be another brick
in the wall.” Gilbert sees the casino as part of package with a
convention center and medical mart, which he hopes will attract more
visitors — from a single-car couple to busfuls to entire
conventions.
At the Warehouse District meeting, Gilbert said, “If this is not a
boom to those [downtown] businesses, we have failed.”
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2009.