Casino bill a big loser

LYNN – Gov. Deval Patrick’s visions of casinos generating mountains of cash and thousands of jobs never impressed Pam Granese and, by extension, many other Massachusetts voters whose legislators axed Patrick’s casino plan Thursday after an impassioned, six-hour debate.The vote was 106-48 to send the bill to a study committee, effectively defeating it and ensuring it could not come back up for debate until next year at the earliest.”I don’t think it had a chance in the first place,” said Granese, a Cal’s News customer who thinks worries about its impact on property values helped doom Patrick’s plan for building three resort-style casinos.”Would you want to live next to a casino?” she asked.A legislative committee shot down Patrick’s plan by a single vote Wednesday before Massachusetts House members weighed in on it Thursday.Rep. Bradley Jones was the sole Lynn area legislator to vote not to accept a legislative committee report recommending against Patrick’s proposal.Illness prevented state Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein from participating in the vote. Reinstein said Thursday night she would have voted against the committee’s negative report on the governor’s bill.”I’m a supporter of casino gambling,” she said, adding that other legislators assured her that debate and a vote on whether to bring slot machines to racetracks will take place soon in the House.”I look forward to that debate.”State Rep. Robert DeLeo said he expects a House debate “in very short order” on slot machines. He said in a statement released Thursday night that slots at tracks would generate at least $200 million in revenue.Kathy Walsh, another Cal’s customer and self-professed “non-gambler” said the Legislature made a mistake this week in not adopting the governor’s plan.Not to do so, in her view, means Massachusetts will continue seeing residents who like to gamble travel to Rhode Island and Connecticut to spend their money.”We should put casinos here. There might be some financial relief,” she said.Prior to the hearing, local legislators like Mark Falzone of Saugus said the governor was facing an uphill battle on casinos unless he could make room for adding slot machines at local racetracks and come up with a plan to offset added traffic caused by a potential casino at Suffolk Downs.Cal’s News customer Steve Tansey supported Patrick’s plan and thinks it would have given unemployed Massachusetts residents jobs. But Falzone raised concerns Tuesday that casinos might hurt small businesses, including restaurants.Granese thinks Patrick’s and his supporters’ estimates of casinos creating 20,000 jobs were off the mark.”I don’t think Disney World has that many,” she said.The plan’s defeat came despite a series of last-ditch efforts by supporters to salvage the gambling proposal, but House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and his fellow opponents repeatedly blocked delays in the final vote or efforts to reshape the measure with amendments.The vote was a key defeat for Patrick, but also put pressure on House leaders to come up with an alternative plan to generate desperately needed state revenues.Patrick was in New York Thursday and unavailable for comment, but his spokesman, Kyle Sullivan, issued a statement saying Patrick thanked lawmakers who supported the casino bill and looked forward to working with House and Senate leaders to “push our comprehensive jobs creation and economic development agenda.”DiMasi issued his own statement, saying that “the big money special interests lost and the people of Massachusetts won.””Members of the House withstood incredible pressure from the deep-pocketed gambling industry, unions and the governor’s office,” he said. “The cost of creating a casino culture is too high.”The legislation called for licensing three so-called destination casinos in different regions of Massachusetts, which the governor said would create $600 million in licensing fees, $400 million in annual tax revenues and 20,000 permanent jobs.DiMasi argued expanded gambling w