Pa. casino license goes to Nemacolin

HARRISBURG - Within nine months, the state's 11th casino will open in southwestern Pennsylvania at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort as a result of its nabbing the second and, for now, final casino-resort license from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Thursday.

Just as noteworthy as the board's 6-1 vote was its rejection of a controversial proposal to place a casino near the Gettysburg battlefield. The debate over whether to put a casino near what many consider sacred ground drew national attention and sparked two days of heated testimony last summer among residents, historians, and businesses.

About 40 members of No Casino Gettysburg and other battlefield-preservation groups, who took up four rows near the front of the State Museum Auditorium, erupted into loud applause and cheers as soon as Board Chairman Gregory C. Fajt announced just before 10:15 a.m.: "The second casino-resort license goes to Woodlands Resort."

"This isn't a win for us. It's a win for posterity," said Charles McElhose, who wore a T-shirt bearing his group's name.

"It allows for a certain future, where my kids and their great-grandkids will benefit because they will see the battlefield untarnished and not reduced to something less than it is."

McElhose said his group was now focused on creating a buffer zone around the landmark to protect it from development "so we won't see this come up every five years."

Timing was in the anti-casino groups' favor, said Nicholas Redding of the national preservation group Civil War Trust, which since the 1980s has preserved more than 30,000 battlefield acres, 800 of them at Gettysburg.

Redding noted that on April 12, 1861, the firing began on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and two days later the war had its first casualty.

"This is a wonderful way to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the war," he said. This casino "did not fit the character of Gettysburg."

David LaTorre, who represented the backers of the proposed $75 million Gettysburg casino, Mason-Dixon Resorts L.P., said he was disappointed by the outcome. He acknowledged that the strong effort by preservation groups had influenced public opinion against the project.

The casino was to sit six miles from Maryland and a half-mile from the boundary of Gettysburg National Military Park.