Louisiana Senate Committee Passes Slidell Casino Bill, Floor to Consider Measure

An exertion inwards LA to relocate a riverboat cassino permission from Bossier City to Slidell inward St. Tammany Parish made advancement this calendar week inward the country Senate.

Senate Bill 213, authored past Sen. Sharon Hewitt (R-Slidell), narrowly passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday past a 4-3 vote. If the account passes the Senate and House of Representatives, and is and then signed by Gov. John Lackland bel Edwards (D), voters in St. Tammany would follow asked during the Nov 2021 election whether they wish to appropriate commercial message gambling inward the parish.

It’s about giving our local biotic community the chance to vote,” Hewitt explained of her legislation.

Only a simple legal age living is requisite to ending the current ban that bans casinos within St. Tammany.

Relocating DiamondJacks

The drive to come in a cassino inwards Slidell is existence goaded past Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (P2E). The casino operator closed its DiamondJacks Casino inward Bossier City amid the pandemic cobbler's last year.

P2E says Bossier City is oversaturated with riverboat casinos. It has pinpointed Slidell as a more attractive market. Slidell is about 30 miles NE of New Orleans crossways Lake Pontchartrain.

With nation and local elector support, P2E says it would pass $250 one thousand thousand to build a young gaming destination on 100 acres of soil simply off Interstate 10 at the Lakeshore Marina.

The last clip an sweat to countenance riverboat play inward St. Tammany came dorsum inwards 1996. Voters easily rejected the referendum, 62 percent saying “no” to gambling.

Attitudes towards gambling, P2E hopes, have got since changed. The parish was single of 64 parishes that signed away finally Nov on allowing sports betting to have shoes within their limits.

P2E holds unity of the state’s 15 riverboat gaming permits. group A 2018 law, however, allows riverboats to request permission from the Pelican State Gaming Control Board for the favour to move inland, so long as they remain within 1,200 feet of water.

Controversy Surrounds Vote

The Advocate reports that Sen. Gary Smith (D-Norco), who chairs the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee, casting the tiebreaking vote inward okaying the Slidell gambling casino bill. Smith’s wife, however, is a longtime lobbyist in Baton Rouge and has been hired past P2E to third house on behalf of its Slidell cassino ambitions.

She didn’t evidence me,” David Smith said of his wife’s P2E work to The Advocate. “Any involvement by her would non modify my ruling that letting the people of that expanse voter turnout on the issuance is the right vote.”

P2E says its Slidell casino would create 1,700 grammatical construction jobs, and 1,900 permanent positions thereafter. The parish would welfare direct from a Little Phoebe percent revenue enhancement on all revenue gaming revenue beingness earmarked to rest locally.

The St. Tammany Parish Council inward Feb endorsed the sweat to allow voters to adjudicate if they wish to remnant the area’s proscription on gambling.

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