Perkins declares controversial neighborhood casino bill dead

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The controversial neighborhood casino bill that pitted Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming against organized labor was declared dead by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, Monday.

Perkins said he made the decision to let the bill die -- hours before the end of the Legislature's 73rd regular session -- after it became clear that a compromise among the competing special interest groups on Assembly Bill 485 could not be reached.

"I wasn't going to place neighborhoods behind special interests," Perkins said. "I have a larger obligation to the public than to any special interests."

The original intent of the bill was to limit neighborhood casinos in Washoe County. But the legislation then morphed into a battle in Southern Nevada involving neighborhood casino companies Station and Boyd versus the Culinary Union, which wants to organize workers at neighborhood casinos.

Under current law, local residents can protest approval of neighborhood casinos by appealing to the state Gaming Policy Committee, whose members include state gaming regulators. Since 2000, the committee has rejected two proposed Las Vegas casinos based on complaints from residents.

The state Senate amended AB485 to replace that appeals process with another procedure that would have allowed residents to complain to an independent arbitrator. The Senate amendment, which was backed by Station and Boyd, also would have exempted current neighborhood casino projects from having to initially disclose to residents certain information about the size and scope of those projects.

Culinary and anti-neighborhood-casino groups protested that the Senate amendment would make it harder for residents to fight the spread of neighborhood casinos.

The Assembly had rejected the Senate's amended version of AB485 on Wednesday, though there was still talk in the hallways of the Legislature that the bill could be saved.

Perkins, who is expected to run for governor, put an end to that talk on Monday afternoon after an Assembly floor session, when he declared that the rift between the gaming companies and organized labor "was causing too big a problem, so the bill went away."

Danny Thompson, executive director of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said killing the neighborhood gambling bill was "the right thing to do."

Rob Stillwell, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming, which operates several neighborhood casinos in the Las Vegas area, said he expects the issue will be raised again in the future.

"One of the things that it would have accomplished is to eliminate some gray areas," Stillwell said.

Stillwell indicated he was not surprised by the outcome because it had been a contentious issue.