As I walked down the main drag in Ellenville, N.Y., a small town about halfway between Manhattan and Albany, I noticed that if you turn your head at the proper angle, at the right time of day, at just the right intersection, the future doesn’t seem so scary. Right where Hermance Street runs into Canal, there’s the Shadowland Theater, a beautifully restored vaudeville house that abuts Aroma Thyme Bistro, which has four stars on Yelp. Off in the distance is the lush Witch’s Hole State Forest and the valley around Rondout Creek.
But if you lower your gaze a little or look just over your shoulder, another reality sets in fast. Canal Street is littered with abandoned storefronts. One block over, almost all the shops were torn down in a federal urban-renewal project. And because nothing ever replaced them, all you see are a lot of empty parking lots without much worth visiting. “There’s plenty of parking,” Mary Sheeley, the village manager, told me.
Like many small towns in New York’s borscht belt, Ellenville was fairly prosperous throughout the 20th century. The town had a factory for Channel Master, a leader in TV antennas, and the Nevele, a classic Catskills resort. These days, though, nearly half of Ellenville’s adults don’t work. Channel Master closed in the 1980s. Imperial Schrade Cutlery, which took over the factory, closed in 2004. The Nevele also closed that decade. The average income in town is now just over $19,000 a year.
But Ellenville just got some hope. Last month, the New York State Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo agreed on a deal to give the town a shot at one of the state’s four new proposed casinos. (A referendum is expected to be held in November.) As I was walking up Center Street, I couldn’t help wondering if this town had what it took to host a casino. Or if a casino could really persuade people to spend their money in Ellenville and turn around its moribund economy. But Michael Treanor, the current owner of the Nevele, who runs the company that is hoping to get the state’s gaming license, told me that that wasn’t the right way to look at it. “Our ability to do business is based upon a scarcity of casinos,” he told me. If the state allowed a dozen casinos to break ground, Ellenville would be toast. “We would never be able to build something luxurious enough to draw people,” he said. With only four casinos spread out over the entire state, though, whoever got a license could thrive.
Whatever you think of gambling, its regulations are mesmerizing. Gambling is outlawed in one way or another in all 50 states, but almost all — except Hawaii (surprisingly) and Utah (less so) — have exceptions. Most offer state-run lotteries. Thirty allow Indian casinos. Seventeen have full-scale non-Indian casinos (New York and Massachusetts are poised to join that group.) In each case, government officials limit the number of casinos and determine where they will be located.
As many of you know, I spent a number of years working in casinos in Reno, Nevada. I have seen the "down" side of the industry. What does it say about our economy, our way of life and our people, when a town can only survive as a result of people losing money. Something is wrong. Does it just pry lose hidden assets and get them back in cicrulation? I cannot afford to lose money, perhaps many can. I honestly do not understand it, EVERY dollar spent by a casino comes from someone losing money ..... how is that good?
