Richmond Bets Double or Nothing on Casino, as City Moves Closer to Second Gaming Referendum

If the Richmond City Council has its way, residents inward the Old Dominion majuscule testament be asked once again around a nearly $600 million cassino holiday resort that they previously rejected.

Richmond voters narrowly rejected ONE Casino + Resort last-place year, a $565 one thousand thousand resort hotel project that would have got position a cassino side by side(p) to the Prince Philip Esther Hobart McQuigg Slack Morris baccy set along I-95. The rejected local ballot referendum, councilmembers argue, be the metropolis 1,500 good-paying permanent jobs, an prompt one-time $25 meg payment from the resort hotel developing group, and an estimated $30 1000000 inward young yearly revenue enhancement revenue.

The potential benefits, the council concluded, far outweigh the potentiality societal harms opponents make argued such as gambling habituation and crime. That’s wherefore the City Council finally nighttime voted 8-1 in favor of proceeding with a secondly voting on the casino proposal. Councilor Katherine Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was the lone dissenter, the 2nd District rep locution she simply opposes gambling.

Urban One, a Black-focused media empire headquartered inwards Silver Spring, Md., and Peninsula Pacific Ocean Entertainment, a California-based gambling casino accompany that owns and operates half dozen Rosie’s Gaming Emporiums and Colonial Downs Racetrack in Virginia, are behindhand the ONE Casino venture. The partnered companies project to sign up a unexampled evolution and innkeeper concord with Richmond inward parliamentary law to learned person a back ballot vote.

Tax Break Floated

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) is supportive of the urban center asking residents for a indorse clip to back up a commercial-grade casino holiday resort undertaking. In hopes of winning o'er some of the 2021 “no” votes, the city manager has proposed a two-cent simplification to the city’s existent estate assess place if the amount passes.

Stoney says minorities in the urban center took the failed cassino voting personally, many claiming that they don’t feel welcomed to be piece of the region’s economical future.

ONE Casino was readiness to live the number 1 Black-owned commercial cassino resort inwards the United States. Along with Urban One, the ownership anatomical structure was to include 50 investors who name as minorities.

Election results showed that wealthier neighborhoods north of the James River intemperately opposed the casino, patch more minority-rich communities on the southside overwhelmingly backing the project.

Of the some 77,000 votes cast of characters on ONE Casino, the final chalk up was separated by only when 1,500 votes in favour of rejecting the project.

Alfred Liggins, Urban One CEO, says the companionship will fare a better chore of promoting the economic and community of interests benefits of voting inwards favor of his cassino should a revote occur.

Obstacles Remain

Opponents indicate that Richmond trying to have a back referendum is undemocratic. State Sen. Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond), who voted inwards favor of ONE Casino endure year, is now working on the body politic take down to pass on a natural law that would grant nearby Petersburg to hold a casino referendum and relocate Richmond’s unissued gaming certify S to the town. Morrissey’s bank bill also seeks to prohibit capital of Virginia from asking residents again on the gaming matter.

Richmond community activistic Allan-Charles Chipman told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that a endorse ballot wrongly takes a page come out of the cassino industry playbook to “defy the uttered testament of the people.”

While three-fold or naught is an acceptable tool for someone who lost a wager in the casino, it is non an acceptable choice for the members of this physical structure who missed a play on a casino,” Chipman told the council yesterday evening.