In quiet Palmer, casino idea raises a bubble of conversation

PALMER -- The news spread like wildfire yesterday in this former mill town, where passing 18-wheelers and freight trains rattled the small downtown lined with mom-and-pop stores: A casino may be coming.

Inside the Day & Night Diner, residents skimmed through rumpled newspapers left atop old-fashioned red leather stools. Dominating the chatter, along with the latest bank robbery, was the proposal by operators of Connecticut's Mohegan Sun casino to build a resort facility here on a swath of land near the turnpike.

Feelings are mixed in the small Western Massachusetts town of 12,000, and passion on both sides was already running deep.

"People 50 and under want it, but it's the elderly who are usually against it," said waitress Grace LaRosa, 42, in a failed attempt to whisper her opinion in favor of the casino in deference to two senior citizens eating nearby.

"The elderly?" one of them, a 70-year-old man, snapped. "The elderly spend more money than you youngsters! I wouldn't want it because of what it brings to the community, crime, traffic, more police."

Good-hearted chuckles filled the diner.

"I hope it really happens, because boy, we need it," Don Brooke, 43, chimed in from a booth he was sharing with his 2-year-old daughter. The auto mechanic shook his head as he tallied the things a casino could bring to the community, such as hotels, restaurants, retail stores. "All spell out jobs," he said.

"There's no jobs in this town," said Brooke, a lifelong resident, recalling that hundreds of jobs were lost when businesses closed in the 1990s. "All the factories are gone. There ain't nothing here anymore."

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority signed an exclusivity deal last week with a development company that owns a hilly, undeveloped 150-acre lot, according to Frank Fitzgerald, a lawyer involved in the deal.

The developers hope to build a retail complex whether or not gaming is approved in Massachusetts. But they have teamed up with Mohegan Sun so that if the state does back commercial gaming, the tribe could apply for a license to operate a casino on the site.

Although the possibility of a casino was the talk of Palmer yesterday, town officials said that no permits or licenses have been sought, nor has any official notice been filed in town.

But that doesn't stop the debate in a place once known as the Town of Several Trains, for its once-booming freight traffic.

"I would love to see a casino here," said Ken Barton, 63, while sitting on a bench in the town center and reading the newspaper. "A lot of the elderly, they like to go to casinos. The state could use the revenue, and it would be good for the town."

Across the street, Jerry Boucher, 61, from nearby Monson, questioned whether Palmer is the best location for a resort.

"I don't think there's enough people in this area for a casino," Boucher said. "It should be where it can attract more people."

Jim Healy, 64, a resident of Albany, N.Y., who was traveling through on business, said he would make a special trip to Palmer, a 2 1/2-hour drive, if a casino were built.

"I don't see the drive as a problem," he said at a rest stop in nearby Ludlow.

Karl Williams, 46, owns the Day & Night Diner with his wife, Cynthia, 47. They are self-proclaimed gamblers who hope that a casino would spruce up Palmer's nightlife, which generally includes a visit to the bowling alley, a couple of karoke bars featuring country music, and tried and true restaurants, they said.

Karl Williams, who goes to Mohegan Sun once a month and to Atlantic City every October, has high hopes for a Palmer casino.

"Maybe they'll want to turn my place into a theme restaurant," he chuckled. "I'm all for that!"

Although jobs and entertainment are important, Roger Trudell, 17, worries what a casino would do to residents' bank accounts. "It'll suck money out of people," he said, while walking by the local video game store. "I know it'll make my family poor. I have a gambling family."