Will Slidell really get a $250 million casino off I-10? Where proposal stands
The proposal to allow a public vote on opening a casino in Slidell stalled for the second time this legislative session on Wednesday, when the measure’s sponsor lacked the votes to get the House to take it up.
It was not clear immediately afterward whether it meant the heavily lobbied effort to put a casino in Slidell is in serious trouble.
“There are a few questions that need to be answered. I want to wait until I feel it’s right,” state Rep. Mary DuBuisson, R-Slidell and sponsor of House Bill 702, said in an interview immediately after asking her colleagues to skip over it on Wednesday.
DuBuisson declined to identify the concerns, but said it’s possible she will retry on Thursday. The House does not meet on Friday.
DuBuisson and state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, who is sponsoring a similar measure, have said they simply want to give St. Tammany voters the chance to decide in October whether they want to open a casino off Interstate 10 at Exit 261, on a vacant plot just off of Lake Pontchartrain and next to The Blind Tiger restaurant.
DuBuisson, Hewitt and St. Tammany elected officials say the proposed $250 million investment would create 1,700 jobs during construction and 1,900 jobs once it’s open, and generate extra revenue for the parish’s coffers.
They are facing determined opposition from ministers in the Slidell area who are working under the aegis of the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative faith-based group. The pastors say the casino would create more problem gamblers in the Slidell area, and that their churches would have to pick up the pieces of broken families.
“I’m delighted for one more day of success in holding off the vote on the Slidell casino,” Gene Mills, the Family Forum’s president, said after DuBuisson chose not to take up the bill.
The proposed casino is also facing opposition from companies that already operate casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Hewitt’s version of the bill passed one Senate committee, but has been held up before another one.
The 19 lobbyists behind the casino – led by Ty Bromell and Danny Ford – then began to push DuBuisson’s version, HB702.
That bill easily won approval from a House committee despite the impassioned opposition of the ministers and several ordinary citizens, while the lobbyists for the Louisiana-Mississippi casinos monitored the proceedings.
Under a 1991 law, Louisiana has 15 riverboat casino licenses. One of the licenses is inactive after the license holder, Peninsula Pacific Entertainment, did not reopen the DiamondJacks casino in Bossier City a year ago, even though other casinos reopened doors that had been closed by the pandemic. The riverboats are now allowed to operate on land just off a designated waterway.
In 2018, Peninsula Pacific’s Brent Stevens, the founder and chairman, wanted to shut down the poorly performing DiamondJacks and take its license to open a casino in Tangipahoa Parish. The Legislature did not support the proposed move.
For the proposed move to Slidell, Stevens hired an extraordinary 19 lobbyists.
The Family Forum sent a note to House members on Wednesday that questioned giving Stevens’ company a gambling monopoly in Slidell and noted that HB 702 allows the Louisiana Gaming Control Board to approve the move even before the public vote.
The group also questioned why state gambling regulators did not pull Peninsula Pacific’s license after DiamondJacks permanently shut down and laid off 400 employees last May.
The Family Forum also said the state would generate more tax revenue by taking back the license and putting it out for public bid, a move that Mike Noel, the Gaming Control Board’s chairman, said recently was an option if the effort by DuBuisson and Hewitt fails this year.
This story was originally published May 13, 2021 at 8:34 AM.