BOATS BRING GAMBLERS, NOT CRIME OR SALES

If riverboat gambling comes to Cape Girardeau as a result of the June 8 city election:

The city will have a sizable infusion of money, but it should guard against becoming dependent on gambling revenues. The infant riverboat industry is in what one official called a "niche-finding" phase. The gambling boat could leave just as others have done elsewhere.

Pickpockets and prostitutes won't follow the gambling boat to the city. The police will be writing some extra traffic citations, many for out-of-town retirees who are lost.

The promises the gaming companies make during their courtship of the city may change when it's time to deliver.

Motels and perhaps restaurants will experience an increase in business, at least initially, but merchants shouldn't expect downtown streets to be lined with people. Gamblers appear to have one thing on their minds.

These are some of the discoveries made this month during a four-day visit to the gambling ports of Metropolis, Ill., Alton, Ill., and Dubuque, Iowa.

Subsequent stories in this series will provide more detail about the impact riverboat gambling has had on the communities.

Civic leaders in the three cities say the gambling boats have been good corporate neighbors. The boats are professionally run, and traffic and policing problems have been minimal.

The positive view of gambling comes even from Dubuque, which in April saw its deluxe riverboat sail down river.

"I'm sure it can be a success for the city of Cape Girardeau," said Dubuque City Manager Michael Van Milligen, who used to be a police officer in Carbondale, Ill.

Iowa was the first state to approve riverboat gambling and imposed the more severe restrictions. The state's $200 loss limit and 30 percent limitation on the space allotted to gaming on the riverboats left it vulnerable when other states began welcoming the gambling companies.

But Dubuque, which has a population of 60,000 and is a regional business hub similar to Cape Girardeau, already has lured another riverboat to the city. Other Iowa cities Bettendorf and Fort Madison that lost riverboats to more lucrative ports haven't been able to.

City officials in Metropolis, where riverboat gambling began in February, and Alton, home port to the Alton Belle for the past year and a half, are enthusiastic about the revenues if underwhelmed by the riverboats' effects on the local business climate.

Alton Mayor Bob Towse, elected to his first term only five weeks ago, has never been on the riverboat. "I'm not a gambler," he said. That's probably good news for Alton, a blue-collar city with a decayed economic base and a bloated city payroll usurping a huge share of the city's $18-million-plus budget.

The riverboat has pumped $2.2 million into the general fund this year welcome but "unreliable income," said Towse, who plans next year to dedicate the money to capital improvements.

The Alton Belle II, a 1,200-passenger boat nearly triple the size of Alton's current vessel, began operating this weekend. Alton's share of the gambling winnings $290,174 in April should soar, at least until the arrival of riverboats to open soon in the St. Louis area.

Towse, who is a personal friend of the Alton attorney who became the riverboat casino's CEO, was on the Alton Board of Aldermen when it approved riverboat gambling. The issue never would have passed if placed before the voters, he said. "This is a conservative community."

Gambling is still a new business in Metropolis, where Bill Kommer is beginning his second term as mayor. A couple of bar and grills and a gift shop have sprung up near the boat, but folks are waiting to see what else happens.

Meanwhile, the boat made the city of Metropolis $357,731 richer during the month of April.

Kommer and others were pleased last week when Players Riverboat Casino announced plans to build a 120-unit motel near the casino in association with Amerihost Properties Inc.

Everybody takes that as a sign that the 1,200-passenger boat isn't going anywhere else for the time being.

But at this point, cautioned Bill Carrell, chairman of the fire and police commissions, the boat is only moored in Metropolis, literally and figuratively. "Nothing's on land; they could be out of here in two hours," Carrell said.

In Dubuque, the gambling boat left town in April after two years there. Owner Bob Kehl, a local man who has operated a cruise business since 1976, sold the 1,200-passenger boat at a huge profit to investors who plan to relocate it in St. Charles.

Kehl is reviled in some quarters, and legal action against him has not been ruled out. Others are more understanding of his decision, citing his ill health, the competition from Illinois boats and nearby Indian reservations, and the $17 million profit he made on the sale.

"Kehl should have been run out of town," said the Rev. Tom Grey, a Methodist minister in nearby Galena, Ill. Grey works with an organization that lobbies to prevent substance abuse and is trying to stop the proliferation of legalized gambling, viewing it as yet another addiction.

The organization has defeated gambling interests in advisory referendums held in five communities, though in some cases Metropolis, for instance the city councils have gone against the wishes of the voters.

Grey predicts that Cape Girardeau's gambling opponents will lose the election if they focus primarily on the moral issues involved. "We are Americans and we value our right to sin," he said.

The economic issue is gambling's Achilles' heel, he contends, challenging anyone to name a community that gambling has improved.

Grey charges that politicians who don't know how to govern have joined with the gaming companies to cannibalize their communities.

"The future of your community is being decided," he said.

Ministers aren't the only ones who caution Cape Girardeau to look gambling right in the eye. Rebecca Wright, a former Alton alderman who voted for riverboat gambling, said gambling has helped rescue a suffering community in Alton.

"All in all, it's been good for Alton," she said.

But Wright, who owns a gift shop in the city's downtown area, wants to tell Cape Girardeau merchants what she once told the Metropolis Chamber of Commerce.

"Don't mortgage the farm based on what you expect the casino to bring in," she said.

"We all expected the streets to be lined with people. That's not going to happen."

(On Tuesday: Merv and Superman in Metropolis.)