Casino news source: Sun Herald - http://www.sunherald.com
Tivoli casino project loosens real intent of onshore bill
There's nothing new or surprising about would-be developers trying to push the envelope on where casinos can be built on the Coast - it's been done for years, by everyone from Donald Trump to no-name schemers who didn't have two nickels to rub together.
These efforts have often gotten enmeshed in local politics and litigation and many, eventually, failed. Luckily for the burgeoning industry, these squabbles didn't draw in the state legislature, which has an uneasy relationship with legalized gambling.
That may change, if a current effort pushes onward. And, mark my words, further involvement by the Mississippi Legislature on where casinos can and cannot go will not be good for the future of casino development on the Coast.
Now, the potential of having legalized gambling abolished in Mississippi is negligible, though probably not out of the realm of possibility. But a moratorium on any new development? That, my friends, could pass in our legislature. It could pass by a three-fifths vote given the right circumstances.
The latest effort is to have the old Tivoli Hotel site in Biloxi deemed suitable for a casino, by sort of loosening up the legislature's 2005 Katrina-relief law that allowed casinos to come onshore, only by 800 feet, to help the industry fortify against future storms.
Plain and simple, proponents of the Tivoli project are trying to fudge the legislative intent of the onshore gambling bill. Anyone who tells you otherwise is misinformed or disingenuous.
I was there through all the debate on the bill, and I was there when it passed. Lawmakers intended the 800 feet to be measured from the water, the mean high water line, and they intended for such developments to include private property that touches the waters of the Mississippi Sound.
In short, lawmakers did not intend for the onshore bill to open up inland areas for casinos. They intended it only to allow casinos to move a short distance onto land so they could build hurricane-resistant structures.
Passage of the onshore gambling bill was an act of goodwill toward the Coast, which was reeling from Katrina and needed the casino industry to build back.
Many inland lawmakers, knowing they would catch heat from their anti-gambling constituents, listened to pleas from Coast lawmakers and business leaders and, despite misgivings, approved the bill.
During the intense negotiations on the bill, the word moratorium came up numerous times, and was presented at least once as an amendment. And many lawmakers were given promises that the bill would not do what some are now trying to make it do.
While the thought of a moratorium on new development sends shudders up the spines of many Coast business and political leaders, many inland lawmakers wouldn't flinch at all before voting one in.
Especially if they felt someone were trying to take advantage of their act of kindness and political bravery. |
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