By Melanie R. Holmes
AFRO Staff Writer
Baltimore City Entertainment Group must pay over $19.5 million in order to maintain their rights to build a casino. (Courtesy Photo)
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(November 5, 2009) - Applications for the only Video Lottery Terminal (VLT) with minority ownership may be rejected if potential buyers fail to fork over $19.5 million in licensing fees and update their proposal for the facility by Dec. 17.
Baltimore City Entertainment Group (BCEG) owes the additional funds in order to construct a casino larger than the facility they originally planned to construct in the city. Currently, they have submitted a proposal and fees for a microcasino with 500 machines. However, representatives said they would have the money paid by the end of September to install 3,750 slot machines. After the month passed, BCEG Spokesman Dave Curley told the lottery’s Location Commission the state would be paid once land deals were approved by the city's Board of Estimates.
Location Commission Chairman Donald Fry said he was “disturbed” by the entertainment group’s inactivity.
"Despite dates that were given to us where the money for additional machines would be provided and the amended application would be given to us for consideration, we still sit here with nothing today,” Fry said in a recent statement.
Commission member Robert Neal said “substantial changes” have been made to the proposed Baltimore VLT site, but the entertainment group has not offered the Commission any new information. Meanwhile, M. J. Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., said his corporation won’t settle with BCEG until “we are satisfied that we can do the deal.”
African Americans will account for approximately 10 percent ownership within the Baltimore casino franchise according to Michael Cryor, one of the Black owners in the Baltimore franchise. However, Arnold Jolivet, who is leading the crusade against discrimination of minority investors, is unsettled that the recently approved VLT in Cecil County lacks African-American ownership.
“Mr. Fry has seen fit to go on with all-White ownership,” said Jolivet, president of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association. “It’s just not right to allow all these sites to be selected and White people are the only people that can own it.”
The Cecil County VLT will be a $78 million facility in Perryville and is expected to gather $170 million in revenue by 2015 and employ 320 people. It is the second slot franchise to be approved in the state of Maryland.
“It’s a 100 percent Penn National Project, which is a publicly traded company,” said Karen Bailey, director of Penn National Gaming public affairs. “What we are required and what we are committed to is 25 percent Minority Business Enterprise/Women’s Business Enterprise in construction.”
Bailey said the corporation will also commit to 25 percent participation in vendors once the site is constructed.
“I still disagree that the commission didn’t require them to have minority owners,” Jolivet said. “You have all these Black people who are going to be playing the slots. They’re basically going to be consumers. It just boggles the mind that they can award all these slots with no minority ownership.”