Residents from Ferriday, Louisiana recently filled Town Hall on Tuesday to discuss and try to shut down a charity bingo hall that was proposed by a group of four investors. Mayor Glen McGothlin opened the meeting with, I’m not bringing these guys out here to hammer them or us to jump on them.”

Well that proved to be good in theory but that's not what happened as that is pretty much what some did. One resident said, “I’m 76-years-old and I’d pick cotton on my knees before I’d go to that gambling,” Marigene Paul said. “It’s a sin.”

The group proposing the charity bingo hall expects that around $8.4 million dollars would pass through the bingo hall and $6.2 million of that would be returned back to the players. The remaining $2.2 million dollars would be given to charities and another $436,800 dollars would go to the town.

The Reverend of Bethel Church in Vidalia and Reverend Wayne Gray of the First Baptist Church Ferriday said that the bingo parlor would be used by those that can't afford to gamble. “Normally it’s not the ones who have money, it’s the one chasing the dream that are throwing it away,” Thomas said.

"People always think gambling profits will help them, but they rarely do", Gray said. “It always seems we never get quite as much as was promised,” Gray said. “I feel like gambling generally exploits those who can afford it the least.”

But backers of the hall said that the charity bingo hall would benefit the town by giving money to the town, charities and local businesses and that these groups would make more money then their own company, Big Bucks Bingo LLC. “Yes, we get a part but it is by far the smallest part,” Rusty Durham, one of the company owners said.

At the meeting there was only one that spoke in favor of the proposal by saying, “As a practical matter, if it’s going to bring $436,000 to the town annually, I’m in favor of it,” Emerson Slain said. “If they’re going to Natchez or Roxie or Tensas Parish, I’d say let them spend it here.”





- 2008-07-23