In Black Hawk, as elsewhere across America, tax-shy politicians are turning to gambling as a solution to all kinds of fiscal and social problems. “It’s part of the American conservative landscape,” says gambling analyst William Thompson of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “They’ll trade morality for dollars.” Like the lottery craze of the 1970s, which had held out hope that its proceeds could save America’s schools, the current casino boom is supposed to pay for basic services that the country otherwise can’t afford. Massachusetts wants to build a “megaplex” convention center on the Boston Harbor-with a casino attached, to pay for it. Bridgeport, Conn., wants to redevelop its decayed waterfront, using tax dollars generated by a huge casino-cum-entertainment center. Even in the White House, Clinton aides are hinting they may help pay for welfare reform with a tax on gambling. “The real gambling addicts are the politicians,” says Terry Brunner of the Better Government Association in Chicago, where a riverboat-gambling project is under consideration. “They’re addicted to the money.”
Black Hawk alderman Herb Bowles likes to say that he supported the introduction of gaming because he wanted “jobs, lower taxes, and money to fix up this town. And we got all three.” There’s no denying that. But as Black Hawk has discovered, gambling generates as many crises as it solves: crime and congestion now plague this peaceful mountain town. “We thought we’d studied the problem thoroughly,” admits Mayor Kathryn Eccker, a retired grade-school teacher. “I don’t think we’d studied it enough.” Norm Blake, a 74-year-old former mine inspector who sold the Superfund site to the casino, says, “I should be real happy with [gambling], but what they’ve done to my town, I just don’t like.” He gestures at a casino under construction down the road. “Even us gold miners never tore up the countryside like that.”
Black Hawk has more money now than it knows what to do with. The town budget grew from $165,000 in 1990 to $8 million in 1993. The city council will write a check for up to $10,000 to anyone in town who will restore his or her house to its historical appearance. Some people have made millions on their downtown properties; the owner of the local gas station and convenience store bought two Mercedes-Benzes (red and white, his and hers) the day after he sold out. For anyone who wants to work, unemployment is a thing of the past. “I’m making a good salary, better than I ever did,” says city clerk Penny Round. So she thinks gambling is a godsend? No: “I wouldn’t wish this on anybody’s town.”
As many as 8,000 people descend on Black Hawk every day, mostly day-trippers from nearby Denver. “I miss the winters especially, where you’d only see three people on the street,” says resident Mary Blake Klemp. Diesel fumes and the smell of frying hamburgers hang in the mountain air; the electronic bleating of the slot machines resounds along the town’s two main streets. Aside from the post office and the bank, gambling is the only enterprise in town: proper-ties have become too valuable for any other business to afford the rents. “If a factory came in, you’d get a housing development and a grocery store and a drugstore,” says Tucker Adams, chief economist at the Colorado National Bank. “With gaming, you don’t.” More than 200 residents have left-sold out for big money or moved out in disgust. “The thing about losing the gas station and the convenience store is not the gas and the groceries,” says alderman Bill Lovingier. “It’s the interaction, like ‘Hey, Tom, how ya doin’! Hiya, Herb!’”
Despite the municipality’s efforts to prepare itself for the gambling onslaught, as Round says, “things come up every day that you could never, ever anticipate.” She didn’t know what to tell the fellow who called recently to ask about municipal regulations concerning psychic-arts studios. Black Hawk expected a higher crime rate, and the town hired 22 new cops (up from one half-time marshal in the old days). But the residents weren’t prepared for the kinds of crimes they’re getting; in addition to assault and criminal mischief, says police spokeswoman Dixie Lovingier, “we have an inordinate amount of urinating in public.” Her alderman husband, Bill, gets a little embarrassed when he talks about the new sewage plant Black Hawk has to build. “Basically, uh, people tend to drink while they’re gambling, and the sewage has a particular quality.” A high alcohol content kills the bacteria that eat sewage.
The town government started losing battles to the big gaming companies right away. Black Hawk wanted legalized gambling to bolster mom-and-pop stores that were going out of business, so only 35 percent of commercial floor space was supposed to be occupied by slot machines or blackjack and poker tables. The big casino chains lobbied Colorado’s Gaming Commission to interpret those rules loosely-cashiers’ desks and women’s restrooms could be included in the nongambling space-and soon the establishments that didn’t offer wall-to-wall slot machines found they couldn’t take the competition. “The big boys can do anything and everything for as long as they like, until the little guy is gone,” says Bill Lorenz, a former mayor whose family runs one of the few locally owned casinos in town. The “big boys” say they’re trying to be good neighbors. Bullwhackers gives money to the high school and local charities. General manager Eddie Lynn says, “We think we’re a responsible member of this community.”
Gambling has made government easier to finance, but it hasn’t made government easier. City council meetings used to be over in 45 minutes; now they take hours. At one recent session, casino owner Kay Lorenz questioned a $1.5 million proposal for a new firehouse. “We’re talking about millions [of dollars] here, and we used to talk about thousands,” she said. “This used to be a plain, hard-working-people town. Now it’s, ah!” with a wave of her hand, “people are ready to spend money.” Mostly outside developers want to build a gondola to convey gamblers from a mountaintop parking site to the casinos down in the valley. More than one alderman wanted to give the go-ahead without further discussion. Said Mayor Eccker, “I hope we don’t find ourselves up a tree without a ladder.”
Some people in Black Hawk worry about the giant casino and hotel under construction in neighboring Central City. Everybody knows you have to be a “visitor destination” in order to survive, even in the booming casino industry. A former gold-mining town like Black Hawk knows the perils of boom-and-bust all too well. Penny Round keeps the old town maps in the council office, and they show how Black Hawk quickly grew-and collapsed. “I’m using all my historic-preservation money quickly,” says Round, “because I don’t know how long it’ll be with us.” If it weren’t for gambling, of course, the maps would still be moldering in a corner. Advocates of gambling didn’t save Black Hawk quite the way they’d imagined, but they did save the maps.
