You’ve seen and heard the commercials featuring country music stars and promoting taxation of illegal gambling. You’ve received mailers prompting calls to your legislator. You may have even received a phone call or survey about this. But who is the Sweet Home Alabama Coalition, and why are they so interested in electronic bingo gambling?
According to the Alabama Secretary of State Web site, the group, whose nature of business is listed as music and entertainment festivals, was incorporated March 5 by Billy Graham of One Maverick Way in Enterprise.
Graham is vice president of acquisitions and disposition for Ronnie Gilley Properties LLC and vice president of Ronnie Gilley Entertainment, the companies behind Country Crossing, the hotly debated entertainment complex and 100,000-square-foot electronic bingo gambling facility under construction in Dothan.
If the bills supported by the coalition — Senate Bill (SB) 471 and House Bill (HB) 676 — pass, Country Crossing may be one of several “points of destination” across the state offering large-scale, “high-stakes” electronic bingo gambling. Yet after hearing about the Sweet Home Alabama Coalition, many Alabamians are left confused about the group’s real intents.
Graham said he originally did not want to be known and instead had a lawyer set up the entity “as a part of the Friends of Alabama campaign to do some advertising and stuff.” He noted that the group is comprised of many professional and successful Alabama business people who support these bills and want the Legislature to know the people should have the right to vote on the matter. Ronnie Gilley, owner of the aforementioned companies, also told The Alabama Baptist he is a member of the coalition.
“This group was created basically once we heard this legislation was coming out and heard about the opposition against it,” Graham said. “We formed this group to get the word out for the people to contact their legislators to let them to vote. … The people need to have a say on this.”
But others fighting the legal and illegal expansion of gambling in Alabama contend that it’s all a matter of money.
“They are not concerned about the people of Alabama,” said Bucky Rizzo, chairman of the Walker County Political Accountability Coalition currently fighting electronic bingo gambling efforts in Walker County. “They just want to line their own pockets.”
Graham admitted that potential profits were an interest of many involved in the Sweet Home Alabama Coalition.
“We are fighting for our families, too, and I don’t want to not be able to provide for my family and children,” he said. “I don’t want the governor or any other entity to try to shut my business down.”
Graham also admitted the financial interests of the country music artists involved in Country Crossing, stating that many have already started investing in the Dothan area.
“Tracy Lawrence owns a subdivision here in (New) Brockton called Mayberry,” Graham said. “Darryl Worley has Darryl Worley Home Furnishing in Alabama. George Jones recently built a house in Enterprise in a subdivision called The Legends. Randy Owen already lives in Alabama.”
Graham added, “The music entertainment is dead right now — piracy, low record sales. In order for these artist to make a living and get their music heard, they have to tour. … They have to tour to make money right now.”
According to an e-mail alert released by Joe Godfrey, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program, “The gambling industry is pushing this legislation in order to hang on to their absurd profits from their predatory gambling practices. They do not want the governor’s task force to close them down, so they are pushing these bills in order to undermine the law enforcement activities that are finally taking place in this state. The way to get rid of illegal gambling in Alabama is by enforcing the law, not by legalizing what is currently illegal.”
Adding to the confusion surrounding the Sweet Home Alabama Coalition is a recent phone message or survey received by many Alabamians. “From what we have been able to piece together, most of the people don’t even understand what the survey is talking about,” Godfrey said.
Hearing information about the coalition and taxing illegal gambling, one witness said the message makes it sound like you should vote yes to the bills. Then, listeners are told, “If you want to tax illegal gambling, press one. If you don’t, press two.”
After pressing a number, listeners are apparently forwarded to a legislator’s office to tell them to vote yes to the bills.
One senator’s secretary said office phones were “ringing off the hook” March 26, but most people did not realize how they became connected to her phone line.
“The message said they were taking a survey,” she said. “One caller asked him (her senator) to vote yes for Bengay.”
Yet Graham said his organization is not responsible for any phone calls or similar mailouts many have received around the state. “The mailouts didn’t come from me or my office,” he said. “I’ve gotten some nasty phone calls and e-mails (from people) to take them off the mailing list. May be some people in the coalition are doing their own campaigning, but I have yet to see any kind of bill for a mailout.”
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