Michigan board to decide licensing for Detroit’s third planned

Jim Suhr

Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2000 | 4:27 a.m.

DETROIT - State gambling officials got a sneak-peak at the inner workings of the Greektown Casino shortly before they were expected to grant a license for Detroit's third gambling hall.

If licensed, the casino in downtown's Greektown entertainment district would open Friday, with 2,400 workers, about 2,416 slot machines and 103 game tables in 75,000 square feet of Mediterranean-themed space.

During a 90-minute tour of the casino Wednesday, the board toured everything from the general gaming area to the "high-rollers" section. They also saw many things public eyes aren't meant to see, such as the trail money takes in and out of the casino inside armored cars and security features with a prison-esque feel, such as doors that open only after others have shut.

Officials also walked through a fifth-floor detention area, where unwelcome guests are to be held for police, and got a private viewing of the surveillance room where workers monitor 970 cameras and 450 VCRs.

It was the Michigan Gaming Board's first inspection of the finished product.

The board briefly convened this afternoon, then adjourned to take the walking tour. Members were set to reconvene at 6 p.m. EST.

Regardless of the licensing outcome, the casino was to host a charity fund-raiser later Wednesday night for more than 2,000 guests.

The casino's licensing process had been delayed for months as Greektown Casino investors Ted Gatzaros, Dimitrios Papas and their wives shopped their 40 percent stakes after state-mandated investigations uncovered problems with their backgrounds.

In August, the gambling control board approved a revised plan for the couples to sell to the tribe their interests with no prospects of reinvesting. The 28,000-member tribe owns 80 percent of the $150 million site, having sold off 10 percent of its ownership to local minorities.

The state board deemed the Upper Peninsula's Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians a suitable owner of Greektown Casino in September, a month before those regulators reopened an investigation into the tribe.

Among the allegations against the tribe that investigators were scrutinizing were from former business partner Ernest Young, who said he was forced into improper business dealings by some tribal officials.

The state is looking at Young's allegations stemming from a company he started in 1972, Special Plastic Products. He sold the company to the tribe in 1994.

Young filed an arbitration case against the tribe in 1996. In all three alleged incidents, Young said tribal officials demanded that he make payments to tribal leaders from business funds.

Attorneys for the tribe said during the arbitration that Young made purchases he should not have and managed the plant poorly. The business eventually failed, and the tribe sold it in 1997 for $1.4 million.

In addition to the state's probe into Young's allegations, tribe members have questioned how the tribe spends its casino money, whether its elections are fair and why many of its businesses have failed.

In August, Bonnie McKerchie, who ran unsuccessfully for a tribal board seat in June, said the tribe has committed too much to the Greektown Casino, and that the venture was "too risky."

Others are upset that the tribe put up as collateral one of its new trust funds, a $19.7 million federal land-claims settlement that pays every elder $1,200 a year. Tribal leaders promised to put $10 million in casino profits into the fund.

Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer has hailed moves toward the Greektown Casino's opening as positive steps toward his goal of turning around a city that already has collected tens of millions in revenue from its two existing casinos, with even more expected from the Greektown one.

With each passing day, the casino had fallen farther behind its competitors, giving the local MotorCity and MGM Grand Detroit gambling halls that opened last year more time to build customer loyalty and costing the city additional tax revenue.

All three casinos are to move to permanent Detroit sites within four years on land that Archer said officials continue negotiating to obtain.