letter to editor about slots at Anne Arundal mall

[Nancy Waterman]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802429.html

A little background before you read the letter:

Maryland has had a horse racing industry for many years. The tracks tend to be increasingly shabby and less and less people come to them. The state recently passed a proposition (by the voters on election day) to allow slot machines. The opportunity is to put them at the tracks and modernize the facilities, making entertainment centers that create jobs and benefit the economy, as well as help the state with tax income. Instead, the morons are talking about putting the slots at a big mall, while the horse industry continues its decline. Stupid, stupid. I wonder if someone has been paid off in historically corrupt Baltimore/Annapolis.

From the letter:

The issue of where slot machines should be placed in Maryland has once again demonstrated that the state's politics are uniquely illogical <"Arundel Mills zoning for casino approved," Metro, Dec. 22>.

The decision not to put slots at one or both of the state's major thoroughbred racetracks clearly was made without Marylanders' interests in mind. Placing slots next to a shopping mall is like placing an emergency room in a supermarket instead of a hospital. People who gamble go to racetracks, casinos or slot parlors, not shopping malls. And anyone who thinks a six-week live racing season at Pimlico (just so Maryland can retain the Preakness) can keep horse racing alive in Maryland clearly has not been to Pimlico in recent years; it is among the most decrepit facilities not yet demolished in Baltimore.

Why can't Maryland have a nice, friendly racetrack with horse racing, slots, restaurants, entertainment, etc., as other states have? What, other than Baltimore money and influence, could explain why the state is going in a direction sure to fail? Why can't the Cordish Cos. get together with the Maryland Jockey Club and develop the racetracks in a way that makes sense?