BUFFALO — The gray girders going up in an uninviting stretch of the Cobblestone District near downtown Buffalo seem a promising sign. Almost any economic activity is usually welcomed in this city that has become an emblem of faded industrial glory.
But these gray girders are the bones of a 6,000-square-foot gambling hall that the Seneca Indians intend to open in May, a marker for a far larger, $125 million casino that the tribe hopes will attract gamblers from Cleveland and Pittsburgh and transform Buffalo into a leisure hub.
But even in a city from which jobs and residents continue to flee, many business and political leaders see the casino as fiscal and civic poison. Though the Seneca Gaming Corporation promises 1,000 jobs and $5 million a year for the city, some think the casino would topple Buffalo’s shaky economy because as a tribe the Senecas do not pay property or sales taxes. Bars, restaurants and hotels without such advantages will close, the critics worry, while crime and gambling addiction rise in their place.
The debate over the new casino, one of the nastiest recent public arguments in Buffalo, was only a war of words until a federal judge ruled last month that the National Indian Gaming Commission had acted improperly when it granted the Senecas permission to run a casino. The judge ordered the commission to reconsider, which could take six months.
While the casino is in limbo, a broader dispute rages that goes to competing visions for Buffalo’s future. Backers say a casino would help builders and raise property prices and begin to redefine a city that has struggled to make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs. Casino opponents prefer to showcase Buffalo’s affordability and educated workforce in hopes of attracting science and technology jobs, while redeveloping the waterfront — including the Cobblestone District around the casino’s plot.
“Buffalo is making slow progress, but there is no silver bullet,” said Dianne Bennett, president of Citizens for a Better Buffalo, which is organizing the financing and legal team in the federal and state lawsuits to stop the casino. “We have a biomedical center, a state university. We don’t have to apologize for anything, and there’s no reason to abandon our legacy.”
But Rajat Shah, senior vice president of corporate development at Seneca Gaming, said: “The future is in tourism. We’re the leading edge to change the focus of the economy.”
Some casino experts say the city has an image problem. The winters are long and harsh, and with so many other casinos around — including the Senecas’ own competing outlet 30 minutes away in Niagara Falls and new slot parlors in Philadelphia — luring gamblers here may be a long shot. “I find it difficult to look at Buffalo as a competitor to Atlantic City or Las Vegas or the Catskills,” said Eugene Martin Christiansen, chief executive of Christiansen Capital Advisors, a gambling industry consultant. “It takes a lot of time to get there, and once you’re there, you are in Buffalo.”
The showdown in Buffalo comes amid a growing reaction to the Indian casinos that have been moving from remote reservations to cities and towns. Though legal under certain conditions, off-reservation casinos are lightning rods for critics who say the laws meant to compensate tribes for historical wrongs are being distorted; some in Congress are trying to rewrite regulations for the granting of Indian casino licenses.
“The movement to stem off-reservation applications has bubbled for some time,” said Paul DeMain, managing editor of News From Indian Country, a newsletter. “It’s really the rising wealth of tribes in certain areas and the impact they have on the political process. There’s a certain resentment.”
Casinos near cities have created their own particular problems. Some tribes with casinos have tried to block other tribes from opening. Commercial operators resent Indian casinos that do not have to pay many taxes or follow certain labor and health regulations.
In Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown has tried to steer a middle course. The casino was approved by his predecessor; Mr. Brown persuaded the Senecas to agree to invest about $5 million in infrastructure like roads and sewers, and to try to save half its planned jobs for city residents.
“Our position was not to argue that a casino is good or bad; those decisions were made at a higher level,” said Mr. Brown, who made a point of saying that he is not a gambler. “As mayor, my responsibility is to protect the interests of the community.”
But Joel A. Giambra, the Erie County executive, joined the lawsuits challenging the casino. He says a gambling hall downtown would aggravate Buffalo’s social problems and attract few out-of-town visitors.
One of the main objections is that the casino would be a few blocks from the Commodore Perry Homes, a low-income housing project. Experts say that people who live within 10 miles of a casino are twice as likely to become problem gamblers, and that the poor are more susceptible to the casinos’ allure. “This is like putting open candy in front of kids and saying if you don’t want to eat it, keep your hands away,” said Darius Pridgen, a pastor at the True Bethel Baptist Church, which is near the casino and the Perry projects.
The current debate is the latest chapter in a long-running battle over how to compensate the Senecas for abuses perpetrated against them centuries ago. In 1990, Congress paid the Senecas $60 million to resolve long-term leases of their land to local residents. The tribe signed a compact in 2002 with New York that let them build three casinos in and near Buffalo.
One casino, on a reservation 75 miles south of Buffalo, was easily built because it was within sovereign Seneca territory. The one in Niagara Falls, which opened on New Year’s Eve 2002, and the one here were placed on property bought with proceeds from what regulators deemed was the settlement of a land claim, effectively making them satellite reservations.
“We’re home again,” said Barry E. Snyder Sr., the chairman of Seneca Gaming. “We lost a lot of land but we’re able to recover some of it.”
Opponents, including John J. LaFalce, a former Democratic congressman who was a co-author of the Seneca Settlement Act in 1990, say the agreement was never meant to pay for casinos. Joseph M. Finnerty, the lawyer coordinating the state and federal lawsuits, argued — and a federal judge has now agreed — that the Indian Gaming Commission never determined that these were Indian lands.
“The Seneca have peddled this myth that any land they buy with money from the Seneca Settlement Act automatically creates sovereign Seneca territory,” Mr. Finnerty complained.
While the Senecas’ legal right to build a casino in Buffalo is sorted out, the arguments continue. Both sides point to Niagara Falls, where Seneca Gaming converted the convention center into a casino and built a 604-room hotel, to underscore their cases.
Mr. Shah of Seneca Gaming said the casino has lifted land prices in Niagara Falls, and that hotels have benefited from the overflow when the Senecas’ hotel is booked. The nearly 3,000 workers at the casino and hotel receive average salaries of $38,000, he said, plus health insurance and retirement plans.
“The magnitude of what we’re spending here has not been seen in decades,” Mr. Shah said. “We’re trying to recreate the Las Vegas feel.”
The casino drew 8 million visitors last year and saw revenue jump 41 percent last quarter. But the streets nearby are lined with boarded-up homes, restaurants and hotels.
“There is no evidence of new economic activity because of the casinos,” said Mr. Giambra, the county executive. “In downtown Niagara Falls, even the tumbleweeds have left.”
And Buffalo does not even have a world-famous waterfall to draw international visitors. Attracting high rollers from Pennsylvania or Ohio, as the Senecas intend, may be difficult when the snow piles up.
Critics fear that if out-of-towners do not materialize, the casino will intensify marketing to local residents, who will shift their spending from nearby restaurants, movie theaters and shops to the slot machines. They also worry that theft and other problems, on the rise since the opening of the nearby casinos, may also increase. Visitors to the Jewish Family Services Gambling Recovery Program in Buffalo have doubled since 2001.
“The tough thing in Buffalo is that this is a proud community and all the jobs that have left were an incredible psychological blow to people,” said Larry Quinn, who is the general manager of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team and is also helping develop the city’s waterfront. “Right now, you can understand that when something like this comes along, people might say it’s the best we can do.”
