Detroit Voters Expected to Pass Ban on Casinos

Plagued with crime, drugs and a shortage of jobs, Detroit often seems desperate for a shortcut to the kind of economic recovery that has come to other aging industrial cities in the 1980s.

To Coleman A. Young, Detroit’s powerful mayor, casino gambling is the latest potential cure for what ails the Motor City.

“The issue is jobs,” Young’s spokesman, Bob Berg, said. “When you have an industry that could generate 40,000 jobs, and when no one has come up with an alternative source of jobs, the mayor thinks you have to look at casinos seriously.”

Detroit voters will get their chance to be serious about it today, when they go to the polls and decide on a complicated referendum that would ban casinos in the city. It is generally believed the referendum will pass, but the mayor will press his campaign for gaming through other channels.

In a brief but heated campaign this summer, Young and a powerful coalition of developers and other casino proponents sought to defeat the referendum. The mayor and his allies have waged a media campaign against it in recent weeks, hoping a “no” vote will signal support for their own pro-casino referendum in the near future. Young would like to see casinos opened downtown or along the Detroit River waterfront, where redevelopment is just starting.

Eye on Gaming Revenues

“Detroit is losing jobs. The neighborhoods are in desperate need of restoration and casinos would bring in revenues that we need to help with our restoration,” Edith Payne, coordinator of a group mounting the pro-casino ads, said.

The anti-casino ballot measure is supported by an equally powerful coalition composed mainly of erstwhile allies of Young, politically influential black ministers, some downtown business leaders and leading lights of the Michigan Democratic Party.

In fact, the city’s black clergy have sought to turn the issue into a moral crusade, leading many to break with Young publicly for the first time.

Some now argue that Young, a black in his fourth term as mayor, may be losing touch with his political base in the city’s large black community. They note that he was rebuffed earlier this year when he endorsed Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis instead of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the Michigan Democratic caucus, which Jackson won handily.

“He lost with Jesse and he’s losing with casinos,” said the Rev. James Holley, pastor of the Little Rock Baptist Church in Detroit. He added: “We’re kicking our addiction to Coleman.”

Mayor Prepared to Lose

Young concedes he is likely to lose the issue in the voting today. Polls conducted by the news media found overwhelming support for the anti-casino measure, and Berg said the wording of the proposal virtually ensures defeat for the pro-casino forces. The no-casino movement in June won a court battle over the language of the referendum, and Young’s pro-casino commission did not issue its report until it was too late to qualify a separate, pro-casino proposal for the August ballot.

“The mayor thinks that the referendum will pass and that his side will lose,” said Berg, “but it is not over with if it does pass.”

Indeed, Young supporters and opponents alike doubt the mayor will give up on the casino idea anytime soon.

“I’m absolutely convinced casinos will be defeated Tuesday, but I’m also sure the mayor will go to the courts or the state Legislature to get the (no-casino) ordinance overturned,” said the Rev. William Quick, a Methodist minister who is co-chairman of the Michigan Clergy Coalition Against Casino Gambling.

“I wish I knew why, but for some reason he sees this as the savior of the city.”