ALTON FINDS GAMBLERS DON'T COME AS TOURISTS

THE $20 MILLION, 1,200-PASSENGER ALTON BELLE II REPLACED THE OLD BOAT LAST WEEKEND.

ALTON, Ill. "Company's Coming" was the slogan Alton adopted before the Alton Belle Casino began accepting customers in September 1991. At 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon 20 months later, Betty Nairn's From the Heart Restaurant on West Third Street is occupied by two customers, three high school student employees and herself. The restaurant's homey atmosphere is less than two blocks from the riverboat that attracted 63,000 people in April.

"The only thing it has done is help the city. It hasn't really helped businesses," says Nairn, who has owned the restaurant for three years.

This reality is echoed by other business owners downtown and by new Mayor Bob Towse.

"The business community tells me it hasn't had much of an effect on them," he says. "There has not been an appreciable increase in the hotel occupancy rate."

Rebecca Wright, who as an alderman voted for the riverboat at the time, is a downtown businesswoman who has been criticized because she views the casino's economic effect on the city as a disappointment.

"The original intention was that it would be an economic development tool," said Wright, who owns a gift shop. "I think it was a good idea, and all in all it's been good for Alton."

But Wright says the dream of streets filled with free-spending people and of new investment in the many empty buildings downtown has not materialized.

"They come with one purpose in mind," she says of the gamblers. "They don't come as tourists to explore your wonderful community."

Wright warns that the gamblers seem to be able to get everything they want gambling, food and drink at the casino.

"We all expected the streets to be lined with people," she said. "That's not going to happen." However, the riverboat's employees are seen in downtown shops.

One of her complaints is that the Argosy Gaming Co. parked a small 490-passenger boat on the riverfront at a time when Alton had a monopoly on the St. Louis area gambling market.

"We were expecting a much larger boat," Wright said. "The license originally was for 1,500 people." She says the gambling company was "just being safe."

The $20 million, 1,200-passenger Alton Belle II replaced the old boat last weekend, but seven or eight more riverboats are lined up for the OK to locate in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

"It's been real good for the community," Wright said. "It could have been better."

The boat also didn't precipitate the hoped-for investment downtown. And Towse said there have been several ownership changes in downtown restaurants since the opening of the casino, which has two restaurants at the dock.

Under the heading of broken promises, Wright lists the downtown parking facility the company promised to build, guaranteed by a $500,000 bond.

Instead, Argosy tore down an old foundry eight blocks away from the waterfront, put gravel on the land and ran a shuttle bus to the casino. Eventually, the city allowed the casino to use park land near the casino instead and refunded the $500,000 bond.

Towse said the parking lot will be deeded back to the city.

The casino has another $500,000 bond on deposit guaranteeing it will build a hotel within five years. Wright wonders whether the company will find it more profitable to forfeit the bond.

Wright cautions that a gambling boat's profits can make it more difficult for a city to say no.

"Don't cross them, they'll take their boat and go somewhere else that's always in the back of your mind," she said.

In general, the riverboat company is not viewed negatively, however.

"They are wonderful neighbors," says Nairn. "We do get some of their employees for breakfast or lunch. But as far as droves of people..."

Nairn, whose sister Trisha Croxford lives in Cape Girardeau, has religious convictions that oppose gambling. But when the city debated whether to allow a riverboat in, she says, "I didn't care either way."

She does complain that the casino has run a 99-cent breakfast excursion that cost her some customers.

John Reichert, vice president of marketing for the casino, says it tries to be a good corporate neighbor. "We are trying not to throw out prices that hurt other businesses," he said.

The casino has been a sponsor of fireworks displays on the river and the Alton Expo, and has participated in multiple sclerosis benefits. Recently, it canceled advertising on a radio station whose morning talk show deejays made racial slurs to a caller.

The Alton Belle has had one of the highest "holds" $72 per admission of all the state's casinos. The hold is the average amount each customer loses.

The boat's gross receipts from March 1992 through last February totaled nearly $50 million. The city's share in the fiscal year through April is $2.75 million, the state's nearly $7 million.

A Gamblers Anonymous group recently has formed in Alton. "We probably have families right here in Alton that have a problem with gambling much more than they should," said Towse, who has never been aboard the boat.

Towse says the riverboat has not caused the city any crime or traffic problems. No new officers have been added to the police force.

The city and the riverboat have a good relationship, he said, noting that the local lawyer hired by the gaming company to be the riverboat's chief executive officer is one of his friends.

(Wednesday: Dubuque, Iowa, a city with many similarities to Cape Girardeau, lost its riverboat to St. Charles but quickly found a replacement. In Dubuque, which already had a dog track, riverboat gambling wasn't hard to sell.)