Volume XVII, Issue 24 # June 18 - June 24, 2009 |
 |
Correspondence
We welcome your opinions and letters – with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, 1629 Forest Drive, Annapolis, MD 21403 •E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on-line by clicking here.
The Local Vote Can Stop Slots
Dear Bay Weekly:
Slots at Arundel Mills is now a radioactive issue! You should have been at the Anne Arundel County Council’s May 26 hearing on the revised slots bill and four auxiliary bills.
Many residents near Arundel Mills complained that the five new bills did not:
1. Keep the casino at least a quarter-mile from homes, the rule in Baltimore City.
2. Provide a special road to the casino to relieve the 13,000-cars-per-day increase expected on Arundel Mills Blvd. Councilman Daryl Jones first raised this concern.
3. Grow the parking from one space per two players to one for each player, as at big casinos.
4. Address the problem of alcohol in the casino and its being open 20 hours a day.
5. Assure that one slot machine serves only one player rather than being six machines operated together and serving six players. Councilwoman Cathleen Vitale first raised this worry.
There are just too many concerns, worries and doubts about the five bills, doubts about:
1. The ability/willingness of Planning & Zoning to make casino moguls play by the rules.
2. The county controlling/alleviating the degenerative social effects of the casino.
3. The real ambition of the casino moguls, such as more and bigger sites in Anne Arundel.
Councilman Ed Middlebrooks tried to frighten casino opponents by claiming that if the five bills are rejected, the state will move in like a dictator and put casinos wherever it wants in Anne Arundel and will pay no heed to nearby residents’ worries.
Casino opponents, however, led by Councilman Josh Cohen, made clear they were not scared.
All slots-threatened Marylanders, take heart. The 2008 slots referendum allowed local vote, and in Anne Arundel slots is being vetoed.
Are you listening, O.C.? You can resist. So, do it
–James A. Hoage, Severna Park
Loch Less Farm Is Very Food Wise
Dear Bay Weekly:
Nice article and a good plug by your Editor-In-Chief Sandra Martin on Loch Less Farm in Owings [Food Wise, June 4]. I’ve been going there for umpteen years now for all my garden needs. The greeting crew is usually a Guinea hen or peacock that lets Betty Knapp know she has a customer. Betty not only sells plants at a very reasonable price but also dispenses valuable info about the do’s and don’ts in the garden world. She and her husband Les are two of Owings’ living legends. I can never visit this place without leaving with something nice or unusual. Double thumbs up for Betty and Les.