One-Fisted Bandit

The latest anti-casino protest packed a punch amid the ongoing bad will.

by Doron Taussig

gaming

The only thing Ed Verrall knows about the guy who sucker-punched him is that he was big. It was Saturday, a little after 4 p.m., and Verrall, a prominent presence in Philadelphia's beleaguered-but-scrappy anti-casino movement, had decided to ride his bike up to Penn Treaty Park. There, he knew, the pro-casino group Fishtown Action (FACT) was holding a picnic. By the time Verrall arrived, people were cleaning up. But Verrall was suspicious of the six city trucks he saw at the event — he didn't think they should have been there. So he started taking pictures.

As he stood straddling his bicycle, the 52-year-old retired Teamster was approached by FACT's Donna Tomlinson.

"She engaged me in conversation," he says. "And she called the whole gang over, and they surrounded me."

The crowd was yelling, Verrall says, and someone started kicking the back wheel of his bike. He turned around and got punched in the face. Then he fell to the ground, was descended upon, and didn't know where he was until the fight was broken up.

It's Monday now, two days later. Local blogs have been buzzing all day about Saturday's incident, and both FACT and Casino-Free Philadelphia are holding 4 p.m. demonstrations near the proposed site of the SugarHouse Casino, on Delaware Avenue.

FACT gathers on Delaware and Shackamaxon. Technically, this group should feel like it's winning the casino battle. In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a suit filed by anti-casino activists, a decision the

called the "final green light" for gaming in Philadelphia. And yet FACT seems aggrieved. About 40 middle-aged people, overwhelmingly white, stand here wearing matching T-shirts, chanting "Build today, no delay," and denouncing those they believe are trying to prevent Fishtown from getting the jobs it desperately needs. (They think the jobs will go to Fishtowners because of a "community benefits agreement" SugarHouse promises to sign.)

"Most of the people that are 'anti' are new to the neighborhood," says FACT's Mary Anne Warrington.

Warrington is standing with a big man named Moon Mullen. They contest Verrall's account of Saturday's fight.

"He pushed a woman," says Mullen, "and he got his ass whupped."

Warrington, who was nearby when the fight took place, shushes him. She says Verrall instigated the fight, but that only one punch was thrown. She claims not to know who threw it.

After a few minutes, the pro-casino crowd, which includes SugarHouse operative Ken Snyder, begins looking down the street to Delaware and Frankford, where the anti-casino protesters have gathered. Someone suggests they pay them a visit.

The anti-casino crowd is larger, maybe 60 people, most of them white and younger on average than their FACT counterparts. The bulk of the group stands on the western side of Delaware Avenue, chanting about "Sugar Hell" and Ed Rendell. When FACT arrives on the eastern curb, they cross over. Now the two groups are standing together. When cars drive by honking, there's no way to tell which side they support.

A few near-confrontations break out. One is between Verrall, who's here with a shiner and a bruised nose, and Mullen. The men are pushed apart by a civil-affairs police officer.

"That's what they do, Ed," says anti-casino organizer Jethro Heiko, as he walks Verrall away.

A few moments later, a woman from the pro-casino group looks at an "anti" with a child.

"I would never bring a child to something like this," she sneers.

There's also a conversation between a construction worker named Gerald Hurst (pro) and a pastor named Dan Roth (anti). Afterward, each is asked what he learned about the other's position. Hurst says that Roth "has only been here for six years and feels that his opinion outweighs everyone else who's been there forever. ... he's basing his on some type of research that he's done. I haven't seen it." Roth says that Hurst "stated jobs. He didn't state other reasons. But his primary concern seemed to be that if you weren't a lifetime Fishtowner, you didn't have a right to speak up."

Although a hearing on the casinos is scheduled for the next day (this past Tuesday), it sometimes seems like this protest is a rerun, and that nothing has changed except for one guy getting punched. But neither side is amenable to the suggestion that it's wasting time fighting over a done deal.

"They've been getting more press and publicity," says Warrington. "We're trying to say there's more people that want" the casino in Fishtown.

She expects the fight to continue until the casino is up and running. On this point, Heiko couldn't agree more.

"You think Ken Snyder and SugarHouse would be spending this time [if this were a done deal]?" he asks. The anti-casino protesters, he says, are ready to "increase the direct action," and plan to conduct "arrestable" protests that stymie construction.

"We're talking years of delays," Heiko says. "This is a warm-up, baby."

(doron@citypaper.net)