Does legal slip make Laurel slots unconstitutional?
A big talking point of opponents of slots at Arundel Mills is: Let's put slots at Laurel Park raceway instead of Arundel Mills. Then Anne Arundel County can still get the slots revenue and the casino will be where gambling already happens. Mall-slots opponents want, as the ads say, "to put slots in a better location in Anne Arundel County, Laurel Park."
After all, Laurel Park is within two miles of Maryland Route 295, where slots are allowed under state law. Right? Everybody expected slots to go to Laurel Park, anyway, before the owners stumbled and left the way open for the Cordish Cos. to make a proposal for the mall.
The Constitutional amendment permitting Maryland slots in certain locations specifies one of the locations as: "(I) ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, WITHIN 2 MILES OF MD
ROUTE 295;"
But activists who live in the Russett neighborhood, near Laurel Park, say that the racetrack is not within two miles of Route 295. Slots at the track aren't allowed under the Constitution, they say.
They may have a case. True, the race course is within two miles of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, also known as 295. But the portion of the road near Laurel is under federal, not state control, so you could argue that it's not really "MD Route 295." According to the Maryland State Highway Administration, the state owns and maintains the road from the Baltimore City line in the north to just past the intersection with Maryland Route 175 in the south. (That's more than 4 miles from Laurel Park, according to Google Earth.) After that, says SHA spokesman Charles Gischlar, "the federal government picks it up."
What's more, below 175 and extending through Anne Arundel County, there are no signs on the road designating it as "295," Gischlar says.
What's the road called as it passes Laurel?, I asked National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson. "As far as I know we call it the Baltimore-Washington Parkway," he said.
"I completely understand that I'm splitting hairs here," says Joe Franco, who's on the board of the Russett homeowner association and is trying to draw attention to the federal status of the parkway near Laurel Park.
Maybe, but it looks like the law could
have been made a lot clearer. Maybe opponents of Laurel Park slots have ground to argue before a judge that a federal parkway isn't "Maryland" route anything. If Cordish wins next week, the argument will be irrelevant. But if he loses, this could be another way in which Arundel slots get delayed in the courts.
Here is Wikipedia's definition of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, which it says bears the 'hidden" designation of Maryland 295.
The road begins at an interchange with U.S. Route 50 and Maryland Route 201 near Cheverly in Prince George's County at the D.C. border, and continues northeast as a parkway maintained by the National Park Service (NPS) to Maryland Route 175 near Fort Meade, serving many federal institutions. This portion of the parkway is dedicated to Gladys Noon Spellman, a representative of Maryland's 5th congressional district, and has the hidden Maryland Route 295 designation. Commercial vehicles, including trucks, are prohibited within this stretch. After leaving park service boundaries the highway is maintained by the state and signed with the MD 295 designation.
Comments
opponents of slots at Arundel Mills is: Let's put slots at Laurel Park
What about the opponents of slots altogether? Anywhere.
The only reasonable explanation I can see to invest in a warehouse full of sucker machines is to be in place when the NEXT change in law happens. (and you all know it is inevitable)
Cut to the chase already!
Allow SMALL VENUE table stakes card rooms and a few slots in the already established facilities sprinkled all over the state that already have liquor licenses and parking lots and an owners reputation in their local area.
Lets be different than the competition.
Posted by: MrRational | October 26, 2010 6:50 AM
I was right with you until you usd Wikipedia as a source.
Posted by: Edvado | October 26, 2010 7:30 AM
Regardless of what you think of SLOTS, this is another in a long line of FAILURES for Martin O'Malley, Governor of epic failure.
O'Malley's entire slots plan has gone down the drain and all he's doing is running TV ads slamming Bob Ehrlich for his plan failing miserably and the local media is letting him get away with it. O'Malley even had the nerve to say that Ehrlich is to blame for slots at Arundel Mills instead of Laurel Park, possibly one of the most laughable campaign claims I've ever heard in my entire life. It was the failure of the Democrat controlled legislature and Gov. Martin O'Malley that delayed slots for so long and led to the Maryland horse racing industry going down the drain resulting in slots at Arundel Mills.
O'Malley and his Democrat cronies were like Nero while Rome was burning. Meanwhile, an entire generation of our children have been cheated out on education funding since the original Bob Ehrlich Slots Plan was first proposed. Only in the last 2 years, has the Thornton education plan been fully funded and its unclear if its going to funded properly in the coming years due to the utter failure of the slots plan and the looming billion dollar budget deficit.
Yet, The Baltimore Sun and Washington Post will sleep like babies with no regrets about endorsing Martin O'Malley, Governor of EPIC FAILURE.
Posted by: ComicsHero | October 26, 2010 9:12 AM
This is all the result of the MD Legislature and Governor O'Malley punting to a referendum.
This has no business as part of the State Constitution, but they didn't have the stones to take a stand on the issue.
So now we've got a mess, and companies using the force of government to protect them from competition.
Solution: What they should have done all along - remove the ban on gambling in MD. We've got a state lottery, so there can not be a moral objection. Adults should be free to make their own choices in MD instead of having to drive to DE or PA or NJ to play poker.
(I know, adults making their own choices and doing adult things is just crazy talk in this nanny state, but hey.)
Posted by: Paul | October 26, 2010 11:12 AM
This is a total diversion to draw attention from the issue of whether or not slots should go into the Arundel Mills Mall.
While many people would love to say that slots will go to Laurel Park, there is no guarantee. At least one other development in the county has expressed interest in attracting slots revenue to their location. That battle will be fought when and if Question A is voted down.
Posted by: Fluff | October 26, 2010 11:33 AM
Are things OK at home, @ComicsHero? Take a deep breath. The world's not going to end next week one way or the other.
Posted by: Adam | October 26, 2010 1:12 PM
ComicsHero,
O'Malley had nothing to do with the horse industry going down the drain. The industry started going down the drain in the early 90's when Joe DeFrancis forced his business partners, the Manfuso brothers, out. His mismanagement, and then the ineptness of Frank Stronach killed the industry.
Posted by: chris | October 26, 2010 2:36 PM
"What about the opponents of slots altogether? Anywhere." -- MrRational
You lost. Slots were legalized years ago. This is going to further distort the results of the ballot question. Question A is for or against the zoning change that enables slots at Arundel Mills. It is not a vote for or against slots in general, not to chose between Arundel Mills and Laurel park, and not for or against Cordish as the developer. Slots have been legalized. Cordish has the license. A rejection of Arundel Mills does not stop a slots establishment from going up near BWI, UMBC, or Fort Meade. To vote against Question A because you're against slots, period, is to ignore the democratic process in which your fellow state residents legalized slots in the first place.
Posted by: BigDragon | October 26, 2010 2:49 PM
Please don't confuse the issue further- the facts are that the slots at Laurel are not, nor ever will be, a viable option. Its a message that the No Slots people use to distract voters. A vote FOR QA ensures that AA County gets the jobs and the revenue. A vote against means that will all go away.
Posted by: Ameilia McCormac | October 26, 2010 4:22 PM
At best, if this supposition is correct, then Magna was definitely correct not to put in a bid for slots for Laurel Park. This would have been a very sneaky way for the state to get millions of dollars that they wouldn't return. At worst, it could be the Baltimore Sun's way of sneakily creating a problem where there is none. No wonder Maryland has such a bad reputation for business. Look at what it is doing to its own!
Posted by: jabaker | October 26, 2010 4:28 PM
So now there are 2 obstacles to slots at the racetrack: the BW Parkway (not 295) and the fact that Penn Gaming already owns 1 casino license in Maryland. More and more it appears that the "against" people know slots cannot come to Laurel: they just don't want it near them. The casino planned by Cordish at the mall would be an assett to Arundel Mills, if truth be told. They were overwhelmingly for slots in 2008. Just how many laws do they expect us to change to suit their whims?
Posted by: marjorie | October 27, 2010 7:58 PM