Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 6

6A TIMES TUESDAY, OCTORFR 18, 1994 GAMBLING IN AMERICA It Tfmu 1 I ML- Hi i mi' ALIENS: Randell Hardy of Panama City was selling these dolls. Also available at the conference were "Pleiades University" i sweatshirts and "My Starchild is a Honor Student at Zeta Reticuli i Elementary" I bumper stickers. I or David PulliamKansat City Star Parkville residents Deborah Foreman and Gary Smith are on opposite sides of a yearslong riverboat casino fight that has gotten really nasty. m2 Photo by Scott Fisher crashed flying saucer is old, and very tame news. Besides, the UFO community is so used to coverups that another governmental denial is meaningless.

"Come on," a grinning Debbie Jordon of Indiana said of the new Roswell report. "Our Air Force majors don't know the difference between a weather balloon and a 70-foot spaceship?" Jordon is a famous abductee whom Hopkins wrote about in one of his books, and she paused to sell her own autographed book, before continuing. "What makes you think they're not going to lie about the biggest thing ever to happen to mankind. Of course they are." Roswell expert Kevin Randle said much the same: "If you've been abducted, and you know these things are real, then the Air Force report is irrelevant." It's an indicator of how mainstream UFOs are becoming that a congressman will demand a taxpayer-funded UFO investigation. Or that a Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, John E.

Mack, publicly acknowledges that he believes the stories of abductees. Or that people like Philip Klass, a UFO investigator and former avionics editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology, is increasingly called upon to debunk UFO tales. For all the amusing myths about UFOs and abductions, Klass sees a serious side to the growing number of people saying they've been abducted. "In my opinion this UFO abduction cult will have more victims than in Jonestown or Waco, Texas. Not necessarily in terms of number of people dead, but in terms of psychologically scarred people," he said in a telephone interview.

While some of the abductees sell books and lecture at UFO conferences, Klass wonders how many others are not getting the psychological counseling they need. In Pensacola, though, debunk-ers like Klass were nowhere to be found among the guests sorting through "Pleiades University" sweatshirts and "My Starchild is a Honor Student at Zeta Reticuli Elementary" bumper stickers. Hopkins, that guru of the abductee set, drew a standing ovation when he exhorted: "Know ul-timately that the truth is on our side." Mwphont or mtf mmmxwnm Custom Made mm Column One from 1A dent wearing sparkling gold sneakers. Like many of the conference guests, Simmons suspects she may have been abducted by aliens a few years ago, but she is reluctant to be "regressed" under hypnosis to find out for sure. It's described as the UFO community, but it's really a variety of subcultures.

You've got your New Agers, with their crystals and aura analyses; your activists fighting against the government's cosmic coverups; your mild skeptics who may have seen a UFO once upon a time but have doubts about some of the popular theories. "We always get some wannabes and some look-a-loos," said Tim Wilson, a rapid-talking Fort Myers maintenance man. "Maybe they've had a dream, or maybe they've had nothing. They're looking for ego gratification from somebody else." Wilson resembles a Deadhead version of Kenny Rogers, and he seems to know almost everyone at the conference. He founded a support group for abductees in the Fort Myers area, a sort of Alcoholics Anonymous for those wanting to share what can be tumultuous memories.

"There was one fellow who thought he had had an experience with a very attractive alien. Well, he got regressed and it turns out he had had semen extracted by a machine. He was devastated," Wilson said. "You should be able to talk to somebody, like your priest, but you can't." Some abductees remember their experiences, some learned of their abductions only after being hypnotized. Still others suspect they have been abducted, and either can't find a qualified expert to regress them or don't really want to know.

John Rizzolo, an earnest 32-year-old pizza deliveryman from Chapel Hill, N.C., isn't sure. He sat in the Pensacola Grand lobby hoping to speak with some of the UFO celebrities. He nervously stumbled over his words as he recalled the memory of being floated out of his bedroom window and into a spacecraft. "I still am not convinced that something real happened. I just have these images.

What is the origin of these images? They are so real." Rizzolo's flashbacks include small gray creatures with big heads, big almond-shaped eyes and little bodies performing excruciating procedures on his arms and legs. "It's very hard to talk about." Part of what drew him to the conference was a chance to meet the legendary Budd Hopkins, who has been studying and writing about alien abductions for years. Maybe, Rizzolo said, Hopkins would take an interest in his case. The 2nd Annual Gulf Breeze UFO Conference came just a few weeks after the Air Force released a report on the granddaddy of all UFO cases, the Roswell Incident. This is the story of the flying saucer that crashed in the New Mexico desert 47 years ago and -rJJjlC ustom Made 1 mmm 51 L.

i unrn Times art bling would be regulated, there was a major constitutional challenge brewing. The original statute, approved by voters, was to include all types of gambling. But the Missouri Constitution prohibits lotteries other than the state-authorized one. Just after the 1992 election, a lawsuit alleged that the riverboat games were, in fact, a type of lottery and therefore prohibited. In January of this year, the Missouri Supreme Court agreed.

It determined that certain "games of chance," such as slot machines and roulette wheels, could be considered lotteries. They became illegal. Craps and casino card games like blackjack and poker, however, were consider "games of skill" and therefore legal. The ruling touched off a scramble to reinstate the lost games. Slot machines, especially, are huge money-makers for casino owners.

And by this time several riverboats already were open in the state. The Missouri Legislature decided to let the voters decide. A ballot question was drafted to decide whether to change the state Constitution to "games of chance." That election was set for April. In the meantime, the new opposition to gambling was growing in Parkville. Suddenly there were rallies and yard signs against gambling of any kind here.

This opposition took the Sahara forces, already set up in a storefront office on Main Street and paying the town $10,000 per month to lease the site of the proposed casino, completely by surprise. "It was a shock," said Kara Maestro, a local spokeswoman based in Parkville. "We never expected it to be a big deal." It was. On April 5, Missouri shocked the oddsmakers and defeated the "games of chance" question by a slim 1,200 votes statewide. And in Parkville, in a local option question, voters rejected casino gambling all kinds by nearly 2-1.

That left the Sahara in limbo. They already had a commitment to the city and the permitting process was under way. Plans had been drawn not only for a casino boat but also for a family excursion boat, an ice skating rink, a botanical garden and a neighborhood sports complex. Obviously they could not go forward in a town that voted down gambling. Team Parkville was born and a petition drive began, aimed at getting the issue back on the ballot in August.

Surely the April vote was a fluke, they figured. The merchants along Main Street got better organized and hunkered down to fight for a casino, which they continue to predict will be their savior. "I think it would be great for the town as a whole," says Mary Ann Harvey, who owns Cotton-woods and Willows, a dress and novelty shop on Main Street. Hers is the oldest building in town, built in 1832. She points to the promises of more than to the city from the casino.

It's difficult for such a small town with very little sales tax revenue to come ud with that kind of money. Roads need to be repaired and sewers modernized. The downtown needs the Parkville I ILLINOIS Kansas City KAN. MISSOURI I ARKANSAS an it mi rliJbiin shot in the arm that hundreds of visitors would bring, she says. "If we get 1,500 a day (going to gamble), somebody's got to wander up the street," Harvey says.

She dismisses all the arguments of "cannibalization," or the gobbling up of potential customers. The casino backers say they resent the opponents for trying to stop progress. "We worked shoulder to shoulder, sandbagging, trying to save our downtown and then to get smacked in the face with the reality that people don't really care about our downtown," complains Deborah Butcher, of Team Parkville. While the proponents got organized, so did the opponents. Three thousand yard signs against casinos were planted across Platte County.

Suddenly the campaign got ugly. Accusations of tire slashings spread. A strong casino backer was badly beaten, and rumors circulated that the beating was ordered by the opponents. Insults were traded in the local weekly newspaper, and longtime neighbors were turning each other in for alleged voter fraud. Deborah Foreman, who owns English Landing Coffee Co.

on Main Street, is very vocal in her opposition. She says it has cost her friendships and maybe business. Hers is the lone voice among the Main Street merchants as the one who doesn't want the casino. "It's downright sad. There are people who won't speak to me," she says.

Then she adds, with a touch of defiance, "Any friendships I may have lost were not friends." This is our vote' The proponents say they have suffered, too. They tell stories of demonstrations by opponents in the middle of Main Street, threatening boycotts and wild shouting matches in crowded stores. "I picked it here because it was so quiet," said Rhonda Doyle, owner of Baskets More. "Little ole Parkville. Everyone got along.

Now I think there are a lot of angry people here. It's just kind of torn everybody apart." The most obvious delineation is the residents versus the merchants. The merchants want it, the residents don't. On Aug. 2 there was another vote, the one that ended in a tie.

In one of the two precincts, turnout was 98 percent. Overall it was nearly 85 percent. Accusations of voter fraud were flying. In Missouri, to establish residency for voter registration, you must live at an address only one day before registering. People started to move into town just so they could vote.

Surprisingly, the casino itself has been fairly quiet. Butcher said casino owners offered the help of expensive consultants, but she turned it down. "This is not their vote," she said. "This is our vote." After the defeat, it was decided to bring the measure back in November. That's where they are now.

There is an air of weariness this time around. "I think this is it," said Maestro in the Sahara office. She doubts the casino company has unlimited patience with this town. "We're spending a lot of money and getting no return," she said. In the two years that Parkville has been trying to decide, two other riverboat casinos have opened nearby.

A third is less than hour away. There are plenty who just want over, so the town can heal. Chris Cominellis, owner of River City Ts, a T-shirt shop, said he was all for the casino the first three times but now he's not so sure. He can't vote, because he doesn't live in Parkville, but he hates the fighting. "It's a real low-down dirty shame," he says.

"Maybe we need our peace and quiet more than we need the boat." SIGNS: Jim Weiner autographs a book, the Allagash Abductions. He says he was abducted in Maine in 1976. which the Air Force quickly whisked away and covered up. The account sometimes includes recovered alien bodies and sometimes doesn't. In the UFO community, Roswell is akin to the grassy knoll.

So widely believed is the Roswell conspiracy legend that this year, a New Mexico congressman convinced the investigative branch of Congress, the General Accounting Office, to determine what really happened outside Roswell. The GAO report isn't out yet, but the Air Force released its own findings last month. What crashed on that New Mexico ranch in July 1947 was not an alien saucer, as the Air Force initially announced and quickly retracted. The Air Force said its investigation now shows the wreckage came from a top-secret project designed to monitor Soviet nuclear tests. The wreckage really came from a balloon.

An outsider could be forgiven for expecting the Air Force report to be a hot topic at the Pensacola UFO conference. Its conclusion challenges one of the greatest legends in Ufology, after all. But compared to extraterrestrial kidnapping, to alien implants embedded in nostrils and to crossbreeding of aliens and humans, a YOUR MOTHER SAVED HER TABLE from burns and scratches with beautiful SUPERIOR table pads. We're your exclusive SUPERIOR dealer, we'll come out and measure your table for free! Call now Immediate (813) (800) Parkville from 1A Across the nation, casino-industry types are shaking their heads at the example being set here. "Why don't they leave those poor people alone?" wonders Ralph Berry, a vice president of communications for Promus which owns 13 casinos nationwide.

Of course, he has a vested interest in the outcome: His company just opened a casino downriver from here. The two would compete for customers. "I think for us to get on with things we have to have a definitive answer," says Deborah Butcher, a leader in the fight to open the riverboat. She calls her campaign Team Parkville. Deborah Foreman agrees.

It may be one of the few things they can agree on these days. "Everybody's sick of it," Foreman says. But she also is unwilling to give up her fight to make sure a casino never opens. She's leading the opposition with a group called Parkville Residents and Merchants for the Facts. "I think they've met their match in Missouri," she says.

"We're the Show-Me state." Growing opposition It is along the peaceful-looking Main Street that this fight has really gotten nasty. Quaint by design, Main Street looks as if time has stood still. Brick streets are lined by 150-year-old buildings with tin roofs and ceiling fans inside. It is home to a dozen or so potpourri-filled antique stores and shops selling candy and fancy coffees. The travel books call it a day trip from Kansas City for shoppers looking for charm.

Merchants here say charm doesn't pay the bills. They say they were devas- flood last summer, not just by the water but by the slowness of business to rebound after the water receded. Some weekdays, they don't make $5. These are the strongest supporters of Deborah Butcher of Team Parkville is clearly pro-casino the casino proposal, which has been in place and waiting for approval for nearly two years. After Missouri voters said yes to the idea of riverboat casinos in November 1992, Sahara Gaming, based in Las Vegas, came to town.

They were just one of many casino companies shopping the towns along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in the state. Most of Parkville enthusiastically endorsed the initial idea of a 350-passenger riverboat that would take family excursions and bring business to downtown. They could tolerate a little casino action in the back. The proposal grew and changed over time. The number of passengers allowed nearly tripled.

Instead of a casino as a sidelight, it became the main event with 630 slot machines and 50 gambling tables. In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard found that the river was probably too wild for cruising most times of the year. So, the casino company requested that the riverboat remain docked permanently. Some Parkville residents began questioning the wisdom of the whole idea.

They worried the casino would cause traffic jams, bring crime and force small-business owners under. While attitudes were changing in Parkville, the situation across Missouri was deteriorating. In addition to infighting in the state's legislature to determine how gam r- for your appointment! 360-0299 240-7036 To by wlamtor taaf not hcfcxM Lmvm from No Al Jr pom an nM ScffMmtnotaitfa'r' AJprievtfot). Aluminum nniniin inrrPTiirnTin a i ni tun -L L. I i.

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