"Do not tell them it is over. Do not suggest that it is useless. Do not say that they ought to put their orange No Casino lawn signs away, or stop meeting weekly in church halls, or cease sending fight-the-power e-mails to 1,000 supporters.

Joel Rose admits that the odds are not good. He knows that it is an uphill trek. But the battle is not lost until the slot machine lady sings.

Rose is an unlikely looking street fighter - a mellow-toned 61-year-old with a Santa Claus beard and a fondness for jeans and cardigan sweaters. But he and some 50 hard-core backers take it to the streets.

They plant anti-casino lawn signs across the county, prepare to file casino-delaying lawsuits, write letters to newspapers, rally 1,000 supporters with a computer keystroke and are raising $15,000 for the coming legal battle. The pressing goal is delaying a casino groundbreaking beyond a Dec. 9 deadline, in hope of voiding the Senecas' deal with the state.

Rose and his anti-casino band face a Seneca Nation that already opened two area casinos. It has raked in tens of millions of gambling dollars, has the go-ahead from Albany for a third casino, just bought nine acres of casino-prime land in Buffalo and next month will open a 26-story casino-adjacent hotel in Niagara Falls."

Get the Story:
Donn Esmonde: Casino foes don't care about the odds (The Buffalo News 11/7)