Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501170106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALEC KLEIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: JOLIET, ILL. LENGTH: Long
For 30 frantic seconds, you arm yourself in goggles, a heavy-duty jumpsuit and shameless greed, lunging after cash dancing in a wind-blown booth, adrenaline pumping, lights flashing, bullhorn blaring, ``Go, buddy, go!''
You're not dreaming. You're that lucky stiff plucked for a cash-grab promotion at Harrah's Joliet Casino, a $71 million riverboat gambling complex. Or, you're the embodiment of local and state coffers catching the swirl of tax dollars - $201 million last fiscal year - generated from floating casinos in Illinois.
Scores of Virginia lawmakers want to play that kind of game. For the third year in a row, the General Assembly this month will consider legalizing riverboat casinos, patterned on the Illinois model.
Already, states bordering Virginia have launched a push to jump on the boat, following the Midwest in what is fast becoming the nationwide gamble of the decade.
Between the legislative lines, what many Virginia lawmakers see is a potential jackpot - $123 million in revenue based on a study of the Par-a-Dice Riverboat Casino in East Peoria, Ill.
That money-making feeling is mutual among potential investors. Par-a-Dice is thinking about rolling the dice on a riverboat in Richmond with Thomas M. Mountjoy, owner of the Annabel Lee dinner cruiser. The Memphis-based Promus Companies, Harrah's parent company, has explored sites throughout Virginia. Meanwhile, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach have also sought bidders.
The draw, simply, is in the numbers:
In less than three years, Par-a-Dice has generated $50 million in local and state tax revenue. Joliet alone brings in $2 million a month from two local riverboat venues. The city had hoped for merely $3 million a year.
``Obviously, our projections were very conservative,'' said Donald Fisher, Joliet director of planning.
No one - not even Illinois lawmakers - dreamed of such a windfall when up to 10 riverboat licenses were legalized in 1990. Suddenly, economically depressed river towns found a way to pay for police stations, school equipment, neighborhood improvements - just about anything that would have required cuts in other services or a tax increase.
Between them, Harrah's and Par-a-Dice have directly created about 4,000 jobs, most of them full time with benefits. Fear of rampant crime and dens of sin have been quelled - largely because of strict regulations. And battered communities have undergone face lifts.
But there are still questions about riverboats, and not just over the morality of gambling, easy money and the creation of a powerful lobbying group.
Heralded as an economic driving force, floating casinos have not led to a boom in spinoff businesses in Joliet or East Peoria, officials and merchants say. Sales have increased at some restaurants and hotels, but neither city can claim - nor attempts to boast - that riverboats hold the key to a community's economic renaissance.
``Gaming is not the panacea to solve every problem,'' said Robert D. Herrick of the Will County Chamber of Commerce, which encompasses Joliet. ``But when counties make $45,000 a day (in riverboat revenue), and politicians are getting beaten to death, it's a siren call that's hard to ignore.''
The curse of ``Joliet Jake'' has almost been lifted.
In 1980, John Belushi's comedic portrayal of the ex-convict in ``The Blues Brothers'' cult flick stamped Joliet like the Scarlet Letter.
Already overshadowed by Chicago about 40 minutes away, Joliet was forevermore a jail town.
Worse, it was a jail town with the highest unemployment rate in the country - at least for about a month in 1983, when the national media turned the spotlight on this failing factory community. Even the water went bad - the Des Plaines River was so polluted that all but one fish species died out.
East Peoria, about two hours south, was faring little better, if only because it wasn't populated enough to warrant notoriety. Only half the size of Danville, Va., it was little more than a suburb of neighboring Peoria.
But then, a funny thing happened on the way to Springfield, the state capital. Lawmakers approved riverboat gambling five years ago and added a special proviso: The licenses had to go to depressed river communities.
For once, it paid to be a place like Joliet or East Peoria. And for cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth - high on the Virginia index of fiscally stressed locales - it could bode well. Proposed legislation in Virginia calls for similar criteria in selecting boat sites.
``I remember when there was absolutely nothing here,'' said 18-year-old Andy J. Weed, a bellhop at the Hampton Inn across from Par-a-Dice. ``Just a landfill and wetlands. It's just amazing how fast it built up. Everything just seemed to pop up.''
The spectacle begins at 7 a.m. and lasts until 2:30 a.m., 365 days a year, as gamblers trek to Harrah's: through two sets of glass doors with polished brass handles ... up an escalator into a plush pavilion ... past the turnstiles and another glass door ... over a ramp and onto one of two boats, ``Harrah's Southern Star,'' an 1880-style paddlewheeler, or ``Harrah's Northern Star,'' a sleek mega-yacht.
Then, for the next two hours - Las Vegas: clanging slot machines, curling cigarette smoke, clicking blackjack cards, cursing customers, clattering cocktail waitresses in high heels and short skirts.
``Hey, it's only money,'' said a grizzled blackjack player plunking down his last chips on a long shot. ``You can't take it with you.''
Even so, no expense is spared in establishing the color of money. The $22 million, 33,000-square-foot art-deco boat in East Peoria comes equipped with state-of-the-art ventilation, handpainted wallpaper in a black-and-white fan design, aqua-tinted glass pillars filled with bubbling water, a brass balcony overlooking the entrance foyer, purple sconces adorning the staircases, a bar on every floor and wall-to-wall slot machines, from a nickel bet to $100 a pop. ``Up to 97.4 percent payback,'' declares one wall of $1 slots.
``There is no catch,'' said Julie Ohl, a Par-a-Dice spokeswoman.
Actually, there is one catch - winning.
``It's been a pretty penny,'' 47-year-old Evelyn E. Robinson said of her losses at the $1 slots at Harrah's. ``I used to come three, four times a week, but that was a little too much. Anything can be addictive. It's like going to Vegas; the first thing you want to do is everything, and that can be expensive. What you have to do is retrain yourself. I had to stop myself until I got myself under control.''
Now, the suburban Chicago government employee plays twice a week.
The average customer, 35 years old and white-collar, comes to the Joliet boat three times a year and loses $65 each time. There are no spending limits, just the gambler's pocketbook, although credit-card machines are readily accessible on every boat.
The concept apparently sells, despite federal regulations that prohibit casinos from showing any gambling in television commercials: Harrah's pulls in 2 million visitors a year from a 50-mile radius - 20 percent from Chicago, 10 percent from northwest Indiana, 1 percent to 2 percent from other states.
Par-a-Dice is even more of a mecca for out-of-towners: 90 percent of its customers come from outside the metro Peoria area.
``100 percent SATISFACTION GUARANTEED,'' declares a third-floor poster on Harrah's Southern Star. ``We guarantee fun, high quality experiences, fast, friendly service and clean comfortable surroundings. If you're not completely satisfied please be sure to let us know and your next cruise is on us.''
But no money back. Said Harrah's spokeswoman Beth A. Flowers: ``We always say, `Bet with your head, not over it.'''
Someone is always watching.
Surveillance cameras blend into the scenery, hidden under decorative black globes in the ceiling, keeping an eye on gamblers - and problems.
``We're trained to handle customers to a certain extent,'' said Jimmie Hill, a Harrah's ``customer safety representative'' with a permanent smile under his thin gray mustache.
If a customer becomes unruly, Hill said, ``we have ways, you understand.'' What those ways amount to, however, ``for security reasons, I can't answer that,'' he said.
Problems occur rarely on the boats, however, according to the Illinois Gaming Board. To wit, East Peoria police reported more calls from Wal-Mart than Par-a-Dice last year. The crime rate in East Peoria has remained steady, and the rate has even dropped in Joliet. So has unemployment.
Maria D. Atherton was once one of those statistics. Living on welfare, she was raising three children on $200 a month in food stamps until Par-a-Dice arrived.
Last year, she earned about $33,000 as a blackjack dealer.
The average Harrah's employee in Joliet makes $25,000 annually with health and dental benefits. Most are hired locally.
``There's a lot of people who don't get the chance to actually go get a job like this and support their children,'' Atherton said. ``A lot of people on welfare, they don't want to be on welfare. I think the legislators [in Virginia] ought to think about that. Give people like me a chance.''
Even with the riverboats, the streetscapes in downtown Joliet remain clean, quaint and quiet, bereft of their former retail glory, scattered with local government workers and lawyers who stayed behind.
The grand old downtowns of Norfolk and Portsmouth know this story.
``When I was a kid, this place was hustling and bustling, but when the malls came, all the business went out there. This town was pretty ghostly,'' said Joan M. Angelus, manager of Joliet's new upscale downtown Italian eatery, Mia Figlia. ``With the boat and this being the city center, business is generating back down here again.''
But Mia Figlia's owners didn't choose Joliet because of the boats; they were local boys coming home. A block away, Aunt Jean's Restaurant didn't renovate because of the boats; it had been about 40 years since the last overhaul.
``When the boats first opened, we thought they weren't going to open any restaurants or lounges, giving us downtown people a little time span to get the business from their boat,'' said dining room supervisor Elizabeth J. Benson, whose mother used to cook here. ``That's what we were led to understand, but they have built their pavilion, they have their own restaurants, they have lounges, they have a gift shop. It's pretty much self-contained.''
But businesses directly supplying goods to the riverboats have profited. So have hotels. Rooms booked for conventions in the Peoria area in 1994 increased more than 50 percent from 1993. The number of tour groups rose at nearly the same pace.
``Is [the riverboat] the only reason those figures increased? No. But we like to say that it had a big impact,'' said Crystal D. Humbles, director of tourism and convention sales of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The local strip joint has felt the impact, too.
About a mile from Par-a-Dice, Club Cabaret opened in August - not because of the boat, but to cater to the overflow of customers frequenting the established competition, ``Big Al's,'' across the river. About 40 percent of Club Cabaret's customers come from the riverboat, according to House Mother Shannon L. Elliott.
``We don't have people from the boat every night,'' she said against the backdrop of naked women gyrating on brass poles on stage. ``But when we do, they come in packs, and they tip big, too.''
The boats also have tipped big, in a manner of speaking. The state collects 20 percent of all riverboat gambling income, 5 percent of which is kicked back to the localities. In addition, the state and riverboat towns share equally in a $2 admission tax.
Virginia legislation would take the same cut, and there's a profitable reason. Par-a-Dice admission tax revenue paid 100 percent of a new Peoria police station, and is expected to finance all of the cost for an East Peoria sports complex.
Joliet's deal with Harrah's required the city to spend $1.7 million for the boat basin, but in return, the riverboat paid $1 million for a riverfront walkway. The casino also generated enough funds for a neighborhood improvement project, a police department expansion and school equipment.
With boat taxes, Joliet expects to wipe out its $60 million debt by 2001.
Joliet Jake is indeed a receding memory.
``These things are real sleepers,'' said Robert Herrick of the Will County Chamber of Commerce. ``Nobody saw this coming.''
by CNB