Southern Md. areas that had slots are torn over new proposals, too

Many say lessons learned in heyday 40 years ago should be kept in mind

By Jeff Barker
Sun Staff

January 26, 2003

WALDORF, Md. - Even surrounded by fast-food joints, the red neon "WALDORF RESTAURANT" sign looks garish, as if it belongs in another place or time.

Which it does.

Forty years ago, lights flashed, and bells rang as tourists hit jackpots on the restaurant's oak-paneled slot machines. Tourists slow-danced to big band music in an upstairs room draped
in red velvet, and waiters served bacon-wrapped slabs of filet mignon for $3.99.

It was an era when slots were omnipresent - and legal - in Southern Maryland.

The Waldorf (now called Rip's even though the old sign remains) vied with the Stardust, the Desert Inn, the Wigwam and other minicasinos for tourist business along a glowing
Vegas-style strip of U.S. 301, then a major north-south route.

The slots, winked at by the authorities for years, were legalized in the late 1940s so that the counties of Charles, Calvert, St. Mary's and Anne Arundel could tap into the ample proceeds.
But pressure from religious groups and the news media, along with worries about organized crime and corruption, led the General Assembly to phase out the machines over five years,
beginning in 1963.

The Waldorf's heyday officially ended at midnight on a summer night in 1968 - when General Manager Dino Cotsonis yelled "That's it, that's all" through a microphone, and employees
draped red and gold tablecloths over the machines. "Slots Given Last Grasp," read the headline in The Sun.

The music of the slots died that night, but debate over the machines never ended.

Today, this area is as divided as the rest of the state about Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s plan to legalize the machines at four racetracks. A recent Sun poll found that 53 percent of Southern
Maryland and Eastern Shore residents favor installing slots at tracks, compared with 48 percent of state residents as a whole.

The difference is that in Southern Maryland, many older residents can recount grand successes and equally spectacular failures of an industry they lived with while others were just
passing through.

Some still possess relics of the era. Those include old slot machines that are now collectors items or any of hundreds of coins from the Wigwam featuring an Indian in headdress. The
owner uncovered the coins in an old refrigerator when he took over the business 35 years ago and converted it into a bakery and kitschy gift shop.

But other residents tell poignant stories.

State Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, 57, says his father, a prominent Charles County resident, took hundreds of dollars of family wheat crop money and drained it into the machines, which
were fixtures not only at bars and restaurants, but also at drugstores and gas stations. "I am certainly opposed to slot machines and am going to do my best to make sure Maryland
doesn't go down that route again," the senator says.

Then there was the state lawmaker who stuffed his trouser pockets with complimentary coins provided by the slots industry during a goodwill boat cruise to Colonial Beach, Va., where
minicasinos were built on Potomac River piers stretching into Maryland waters.

"He wouldn't spend the coins," said John Hanson Briscoe, 68, a retired St. Mary's County judge and former state House speaker. "He slipped, and when they grabbed his arms, he had so
much weight in his pockets that his suspenders broke. And his trousers came down."

To Briscoe, this is one of the enduring images of the period: a senator flailing under the weight of the silver lining his pockets.

There were countless examples of other elected officials working directly for the industry - as the manager of a game room or as a slot machine distributor. When it came to conflicts of
interest or other indiscretions, politicians from that era say, law enforcement agencies often followed a long tradition of looking the other way.

Slots were common in the area even before they were legal, "and the only thing the establishments had to do was turn the machines around when court was in session" to avoid trouble,
said J. Frank Raley Jr., 76, a retired St. Mary's County senator.

'Sordid mess'

By 1962, a grand jury report in Anne Arundel called the machines a "sordid mess." The jury found that minors were playing the machines, that county oversight was inadequate and that
operators were skimming profits.

At the time, nearly 5,000 machines were licensed in the four counties, and the local economies - and local governments - had become heavily dependent on them. One-fourth of Charles
County's annual budget was coming from fees on slots. In Calvert, tens of thousands of dollars in slots proceeds helped pay for Calvert Memorial Hospital, which was built in 1953.

Former Gov. Marvin Mandel, who was state House speaker before slots were banned, said last week that the problem was not the machines, but a lack of government oversight. He also
said slots owners should have been paying a higher return to county treasuries.

In 1961, Southern Maryland slot businesses cleared $13 million, and the four counties extracted $1.3 million in taxes and licensing fees, according to a Sun review of tax records at the
time. Nevada was the only other place where the machines were legal.

In Anne Arundel County, Mandel said: "I saw it firsthand. I never saw the great evil that everyone made it look like. There were all the stories about so-called influence. Down in the
Southern Maryland counties, it was like any other industry: They knew the politicians, and the politicians knew them."

Mandel said he tried to persuade the machine owners to agree to higher taxes, but they resisted making concessions, saying, "We're not harming anybody."

Mandel was still in the House when Gov. J. Millard Tawes lobbied during the 1963 legislative session to phase out slots, saying that gambling was dominating the Southern Maryland
economy.

The slot machine industry's chief lobbyist, Baltimore lawyer Joseph S. Kaufman, was paid $10,000 for the year, an astounding sum at the time.

But Kaufman, who argued that local governments should be able to act in their own interests, couldn't keep the cherries and lemons spinning beyond 1968.

'A disaster area'

"This was really a disaster area after slots left. Gas stations and restaurants closed," said William "Whitey" Roberts, 69, long associated with the Waldorf as a property manager and slot
machine mechanic.

Sitting at a Waldorf booth last week, Roberts said slots are different today because electronic machines have replaced mechanical ones.

The old Maryland slots, he said, could be manipulated by that rare gambler with a musician's rhythm and a surgeon's sure hand.

"You've heard of card counters? I know people today who could empty one of my machines based on memory and rhythm of the pulls. The harder you pulled, the more revolutions on
the reels," Roberts said.

The electronic machines that would be installed in Maryland aren't affected by the firmness of the pull or the amount of pressure on a push-button starter. Although the new technology
may remove some of the skill, it "means everybody has the same chance," said Roberts, who also collects the machines.

Roberts says gamblers enjoy far better odds on slots than in state-sponsored lotteries.

"Winning the Powerball? Better chance of me going to the moon this way," he says while flapping his arms.

Economic engine

To Roberts and others in the area who support Ehrlich's legalization plan, the key is to do it right this time.

"I don't support bringing the slot machines back into taverns and bars, but people go to racetracks to gamble, so why not keep that money in the state?" said John Douglas Parran, 50, a
former Calvert County commissioner who remembers seeing the slots as a kid.

Even without slots, rampant population growth helped reawaken Southern Maryland's economy as Washington's suburbs pushed farther from the city. Charles County's population rose
19 percent in the 1990s, from 101,154 in 1990 to 120,546 in 2000. Many of the new residents are attracted by affordable housing and property tax rates.

Waldorf's old "strip" is dotted with restaurants, auto dealerships and chain retailers. The community's growth was aided when the federal government guaranteed $24 million in loans for
the construction of a series of planned communities in 1970.

But the Stardust lounge is gone, as are the 301 Ranch and the Desert Inn.

The Wigwam still attracts tourists with its wooden tepee and totem pole. In the heyday of slots, it boasted live entertainment and distributed literature inviting guests "to visit us at
pow-wow time" in its Tomtom Room. Today, it promotes "the world's best eclair."

What if?

Many residents wonder what would have become of the region if slots were still clicking.

State Sen. Roy P. Dyson, 54, who saw slots while growing up in St. Mary's County, said he is not sure that the Patuxent River Naval Air Station would have remained in the area - at least
at its present size - if slots stayed legal. Service personnel played slots just outside the base, which accounts for 18,000 jobs.

"The military has never liked that sort of presence outside its gates," said Dyson, who served on the House Armed Services Committee as a member of Congress during the 1980s. "It's
such a diversion of attention."

With slots still around, "I think [the base] wouldn't have been more than a small facility. They would have looked elsewhere," Dyson said.

'Fooling with food'

The slot business existed on a smaller scale in St. Mary's County than in Charles. Mom-and-pop stores typically would have a row of machines.

Among the slot establishments was Duke's, an old brick restaurant in Leonardtown. When slots died, owner Ginny Duke told The Sun, she didn't know how she would manage. Her
husband had died.

"People wanted to come in and squeal and scream. To try and live a little and hit the jackpot," she said. "Now I'm left fooling with food."

But, like the county, Duke's survived. Today, it serves quiche as a specialty and is called Cafe Des Artistes.

Duke still owns the building, and an old yellow-and-blue painted sign on the exterior still bears her name. "We just hung on," says Duke, who describes her age as "at least 80."

Karleen Jaffres, who operates the restaurant, says the history of the place is part of its charm.

"Most of our customers are people that grew up here, and they have many stories to tell about these four walls," she says.

Sun staff researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.

Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun