GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Gettysburg won’t be seeing a
$350 million slots parlor. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control
Board chose locations in the Pocono area and Lehigh Valley
area for the two at-large gaming licenses on Wednesday, Dec.
20.
“This
is a day I think we’ve all been waiting for for some
time,” said Chairman Tad Decker as he opened the meeting.
Hundreds
of people attended the meeting at the Forum across the street
from the state capital in Harrisburg to hear the decision.
The
Crossroads Gaming Resort and Spa was one of five projects
vying for the two Category 2 at-large gaming licenses in
Pennsylvania. Crossroads proposed at $300-million resort
with 3,000 slot machines, 225 hotel rooms and a 30,000 square
foot spa on 58 acres near the intersection of Route 30 and
U.S. 15 in Straban Township.
The
defeat is a victory for the active grassroots opposition
campaign, No Casino Gettysburg, some of whom were present
at Wednesday’s meeting. No Casino Gettysburg had collected
nearly 65,000 signatures in opposition to the project. One
of the biggest concerns about the Crossroads project, specifically,
was the nearness of the resort to the Gettysburg National
Battlefield. Some opponents did not feel the resort was
compatible with area tourist attractions.
“We
are very, very grateful, and we see this as a triumph of
the power of the people,” said No Casino Chairman
Susan Star Paddock. “We were just ordinary people
who went up against some big money and some big muscle.”
The
two projects awarded the licenses are Bethlehem Sands in
Lehigh Valley and Mount Airy in the Poconos.
Discussion
on the merits of the projects was held in an executive session.
Although a supermajority of five “yes” votes
was needed on the seven-member board, the board’s
decision for Bethlehem Sands and Mount Airy was unanimous.
Decker
noted, “Today’s proceedings are the initial
step in licensing.” Though the licenses were awarded,
they were conditional on all appeals being settled, all
conditions of licensure being satisfied and all fees being
paid.
Wednesday’s
meeting was the culmination of three hearings over the past
two weeks and nearly two years of sometimes-contentious
debate over the location of Pennsylvania’s slots parlors.
The law authorizing slots in Pennsylvania was passed in
2004. It authorized 61,000 slot machines at 14 sites across
the state.
