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Swatting down reports that Harrah's Entertainment is backing away from plans to develop a planned casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, senior Vice President Jan Jones said Thursday the company is committed to its project in West Warwick as well as the one in Biloxi.
A front-page story in the Biloxi Sun Herald, e-mailed to local reporters by RDW Group, the public relations firm for the anti-casino group, Save Our State (SOS), said Harrah's is "backpedaling on, or at the very least delaying, its commitment to build a world-class casino resort."
The newspaper said company officials cited, "high construction costs, a volatile marketplace and uncertainty over a proposed Choctaw casino" as a reason for the decision.
"If it happened there, it can happen here," said the note from RDW group that accompanied the article.
Jones called that "ridiculous."
In the conference call that was the basis of the Sun Herald story, Jones said, Harrah's CEO Gary Loveman "didn't say we were pulling out, he said we were changing the time schedule."
The story did quote Loveman saying, "Over some period of time, there will be something new. We have a very competitive land position that is as good as any or better than any. The time at which we would wish to pursue - that is really the question."
Jones said that because of Hurricane Katrina, "there are huge construction cost increases" in the entire Gulf Coast area.
"Finding people to work and figuring out where they are going to live," are other problems that the project faced, she said. "There are unique circumstances surrounding Biloxi; they are trying to reconstruct the entire area. Biloxi when it gets rebuilt is going to be a great market."
As to whether "it can happen here," Jones said "Rhode Island is our number one expansion market. We are 100 percent committed to Rhode Island."
In a recent interview with The Times editorial board, Loveman said the proposed buyout of Harrah's by a pair of private equity firms would have no effect on the company's going ahead with building a resort casino in West Warwick if voters approve it on Nov. 7.
Still, says Tim Costa, SOS director, the Biloxi story "raises more questions and more uncertainty" about "their assurances that they will follow through on their promises.
"We don't know why they pulled back; we know there was a commitment and they pulled back."
The proposed buyout "is putting a big cloud over the campaign and the future of Harrah's," Costa said, noting that earlier this month Harrah's dropped out of the bidding to build a casino in Singapore.
"Do they plan on winning this (Rhode Island referendum), getting the casino license and selling the license to the highest bidder? There is no guarantee, no assurances. If it is in their financial interest to do that, they will probably do it."
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