Slots were not imagined when Arundel Mills was approved

When Arundel Mills was proposed in the late 1990s, it was to be one of the largest malls on the East Coast. In order to win local support, the Mills Corporation shrank the proposed size of the mall and offered to reconfigure roads, add a community room, and provide land for Anne Arundel Community College. With those concessions by the Mills Corporation, the project received local support.

Slot machines were never proposed or even imagined in the project. Since the mall's opening in 2000, the area has seen an explosion of residential development. The Cordish Cos. did not show current aerial shots of the area surrounding the mall in its proposal. If Cordish had done that, it would have been very evident that the mall is now almost completely surrounded by residential communities.

In 2007, Westfield Annapolis eclipsed Arundel Mills as the largest mall in Maryland with its last expansion. Slots have not been proposed for Westfield Annapolis, so the argument that because Arundel Mills is big this makes it an acceptable spot is ridiculous.

The view that pictures of Marylanders winning at Dover Downs makes slots at a shopping mall in Hanover acceptable is absurd. If the slots were placed at Laurel Park and Pimlico instead of Arundel Mills, the people would still come, just as in Dover.

It is very easy to say that something is not a problem when it is 10 miles away from your home and not in your backyard.David Jones, Hanover