BETHLEHEM -- After more than four hours of divisive and often emotional public comment, the city planning commission voted Tuesday to reject a law banning gambling from Bethlehem Steel land eyed for a casino.
The unanimous recommendation goes to city council for a vote on the law, which was authored by city Councilmen Gordon Mowrer and Joseph Leeson Jr. Mayor John Callahan, a supporter of slots as an engine for the Steel redevelopment, would have to sign off on the law for it to take effect.
Bethlehem's five planning commissioners looked past the impassioned testimony of dozens of area residents. Instead, they said the proposed law failed to say where slots are appropriate in the city. The law simply banned gambling from the Heavy Industrial and Industrial Redevelopment zoning districts.
Commission Solicitor Joe Kelly said banning a legal land use opens the city to a lawsuit from a developer. Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Legislature legalized slots last year. Before that, neither Bethlehem nor any Pennsylvania municipality had considered where to allow casinos.
The commission directed the city administration to contract an independent consultant for a comprehensive study on incorporating a slots casino in the city's zoning laws. The study should look at all potential land-use impacts and begin by Dec. 31.
Former state Sen. Joe Uliana, a consultant to the BethWorks Now team that proposes the Bethlehem Steel redevelopment, said a slots license could be awarded for Bethlehem as early as this time next year.
The commission's vote followed the recommendation of Darlene Heller, the city's planning and zoning director.
Heller said Mowrer and Leeson's proposed ban on gambling is "at cross intent and purpose" to the Industrial Redevelopment zoning affixed to the Steel land in question. The 135-acre tract is known as the Bethlehem Works and runs along the southern edge of the Lehigh River from near Fahy Bridge to east of the Minsi Trail Bridge.
Tony Hanna, the city's director of community and economic development, pledged the full support of Mayor Callahan's administration for the BethWorks Now redevelopment.
"Without gaming and the funding it will produce, we fear that nothing will happen on this site except the bulldozing and razing of these historic sites," Hanna said.
BethWorks Now principal Michael Perrucci said Tuesday that without slots, the team's preservation-oriented plans for the Bethlehem Works are not feasible. Las Vegas Sands Corp., owner of The Venetian in Las Vegas and other facilities, would operate as many as 5,000 slot machines.
Perrucci's claim ran counter to previous statements that the redevelopment could occur without slots, though it would take longer. Market Street resident Bruce Haines called Perrucci on the apparent about-face.
"The credibility of any promises of BethWorks Now officials is suspect at best," Haines said.
Beyond the casino, the development team proposes adapting the Bethlehem Works' buildings and blast furnaces into an 800,000-square-foot upscale mall, concert hall and television studio, apartments, National Museum of Industrial History and open-air market.
About twice as many speakers came out opposed to slots than for expanded gambling in Bethlehem and the associated redevelopment.
A Williams Township couple spoke of their son, addicted to off-track betting, losing two cars and his house before disappearing for two weeks when he'd hit rock bottom to sleep at a truck stop.
Eddie Rodriguez, a South Side resident and regular at city council meetings, said gambling would increase drug problems, violence, addictions of all kinds, car thefts, gangs, litter, vandalism, domestic problems, robberies, traffic congestion and car wrecks.
A Lehigh County protective services caseworker warned gambling's ills would hit families hard and further strain Lehigh Valley human services agencies already bursting under their caseloads.
"Any money that is promised to you by Harrisburg, by Mr. Perrucci from the casino is going to get eaten up in the police force first, then it's going to be eaten up in human services and it's not going to be nearly enough," she said. "C'mon people. Wake up. You're not going to get tax cuts. You're going to get more taxes."
Slots supporters touted the $10 million host fee Bethlehem would reap each year under the gambling expansion law and the property taxes the Bethlehem Works would begin to generate again. They also pointed to the construction jobs for the redevelopment and the return of myriad jobs to the South Side.
"This proposal would restore the South Side to its historic roots, where steelworkers lived in the neighborhood and walked to their jobs," said Jeff Parks, president of ArtsQuest, the parent organization of Musikfest, the Banana Factory and Christkindlmarkt.
Mary Pongracz said her native South Side needs the jobs the redevelopment is projected to bring.
"This is nothing more than the proverbial 'throw the baby out with the bath water,'" she said. "But then they want to bury it underground and let it rot."
Several gambling opponents invoked religion as a reason to keep slots out of Bethlehem, which was founded in 1741 as a religious colony by the Moravians from Germany.
Gary Straughan, president of the Eastern District of the Moravian Church, asked the commission to at least set conditions on allowing slots in Bethlehem. He suggested forbidding ATMs in casinos, casino credit, free alcohol, 24-hour operations and so-called comps that gamblers earn with repeated business. Straughan's territory, based in Bethlehem, extends to Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Ohio.
Bill Scheirer, another regular at city council meetings, asked that the BethWorks Now team be limited to one casino and for a requirement that the redevelopment include preserving the old Bethlehem Steel structures. Perrucci said he and his partners would likely accept Scheirer's suggestions.
Reporter Kurt Bresswein can be reached at 610-867-5000 or by e-mail at kbresswein@express-times.com.