Panel formed to help ease in gambling

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:55 a.m.

PITTSBURGH -- Mayor Tom Murphy formed a gaming advisory panel Thursday to plan for the arrival gambling in Pittsburgh.

The 23-person panel -- consisting of education officials, business people, labor groups and city leaders -- will try to answer who will get a gaming license, where the parlor will be located, what it should look like, and what impact gaming will have.

"I've asked (this) group of men and women for a Pittsburgh citizens' gaming advisory panel to begin to, in a very public and transparent way, to discuss who ought to have the license, what are the proposals and what is the best opportunity for Pittsburgh," Murphy said.

Philadelphia has a similar task force appointed by Mayor John F. Street that aims to influence the creation and location of its two slot-machine parlors. Though the city has no official input on the slot parlors, Street said he hoped the task force could advise the state's Gaming Control Board on matters of traffic, parking, design, zoning and more.

It is not clear how much influence the city panels will have. The state Gaming Control Board has final say over nearly every aspect of the state's coming slots parlors.

Board officials have said hope to issue the first licenses for slot machines by the end of this year, with an aim to having some parlors running by the end of 2006.

But Murphy said the arrival of gaming in Pittsburgh, a city known for its blue-collar work ethic, requires frank discussion about gambling's impact on the city's culture and its residents.

He acknowledged he did not know if gambling in Pittsburgh would create five jobs, or 5,000.

"What does this do to Pittsburgh -- to our classic work ethic that was defined by the steel industry here, when suddenly, there is in the middle of a city where 300,000 people come to work every day in normal jobs, that there is a casino they can walk over and enjoy at lunch time?" Murphy asked. "What does that do to us as a community?" _centerline(PROFILE _centerline(COUNTRY:United States; ISOCOUNTRY3:USA; UNTOP:021; APGROUP:NorthAmerica;) _centerline(CAT:Municipal;) _centerline(CAT:Gambling;) _centerline(SRC:AP; ST:PA;) _centerline)