Friday, Sept. 30, 2005 | 11:26 a.m.
JACKSON, Miss. -- The House Gaming Committee late Thursday took the first step toward allowing casinos to move off the water and onto the shore along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The proposal comes in response to widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, which tossed some massive casino barges on shore and shredded the walls of others.
The state legalized casinos 15 years ago but restricted them to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the Mississippi River. This is the first serious effort to allow them to move even a short distance on land, and it faces strong opposition from religious groups.
House Gaming Committee Chairman Bobby Moak said significant questions remain -- including whether the bill would allow casinos throughout most of downtown Pascagoula and Ocean Springs if Jackson County should decide to join the other two coastal counties in legalizing gambling.
Today is the fourth day of a special session Gov. Haley Barbour called to handle issues designed help the coast start recovering from one of the most destructive storms in the nation's history.
"We're ... somewhat working under the gun in an attempt to leave this place as quickly as we possibly can, but we're not going to do it in a slipshod manner," Moak said. "And so we're going to revisit (the bill) if necessary."
The bill could come up for more debate in the Gaming Committee today. It also must pass a special hurricane recovery committee before it can go to the full House.
The Gaming Committee took a voice vote Thursday night, so there is no record of how individual members voted. However, there was no opposition.
Casinos now sit on public tidelands and must renew their leases every five years. The Gaming Committee also passed a bill to extend the current leases to 30 years each. Another bill that passed is designed to ensure the casinos keep paying taxes. Both measures were held for more debate.
Senators have not yet debated a casino bill.
Republican Barbour says he supports letting casinos go up to 1,500 feet on shore, or some distance short of that, as long as they still have facilities touching the water. He says he also opposes letting casinos go into counties or communities where they were not already located before Katrina.
Neither Barbour's proposal nor the House bill would affect river casinos.
The House bill would let casinos move on shore 800 feet or to the southern boundary of U.S. 90 "whichever is greater." The highway runs along the beach in Harrison County, but it's more than a mile inland in many parts of Jackson County, including in downtown Pascagoula.
Jackson County voters in the past have rejected proposals to legalize gambling, but a new election could be possible.
Communities across the coast are looking for ways to rebuild their economies after Katrina, and some see casinos as one of the fastest ways to jump start the flow of tax dollars.
Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre, whose city was home to one casino before Katrina, attended the standing-room-only House committee meeting when the casino bill passed Thursday night.
Favre said before the hurricane, casino taxes made up about half of Bay St. Louis' $7 million budget. To revive the local economy, "the quickest (way) with the biggest benefit is going to be the casinos."
Before Katrina, the coast casinos employed about 14,000 people and generated about $500,000 a day in state and local taxes.
Some casino companies say they want to go on shore so their buildings will be safer. Other companies plan to rebuild over water.
About 50 Baptist pastors from across the state converged on the Capitol earlier Thursday to lobby against any change in casino laws.
Michael Weeks, the pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in DeSoto County, is skeptical that the governor -- or anyone -- could control the proliferation of casinos if some are allowed to move even a few hundred feet on shore.
"It can open the door for land-based casinos across the state without a vote of the people," Weeks said.
Barbour said he has talked to lawyers and he believes there's "zero chance" that courts would interpret any law to allow expansion of gambling counties where it does not already exist.
One of those lobbying for permission to go on shore is Penn National Gaming, the company that owns Boomtown casino in Biloxi and Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis. The company's two casinos employ about 2,000 people total.
Eric Schippers, Penn National's vice president of public affairs and government relations, said company officials had always worried about the potential for a catastrophic storm.
With Katrina, "we're seeing our worst fears come to fruition," Schippers said.
"For us, the issue of shore-based gaming is really important to give us the ability to reinvest and get our people back to work," he said.
Barbour was elected in 2003 with the help of business groups and social conservatives. He campaigned on preventing the spread of gambling, as did the Democratic incumbent he defeated, Ronnie Musgrove.
Gladys Gill, state director of Concerned Women for America, said she believes gambling has been bad for the state and she opposes letting them leave the water.
"We love Haley Barbour with all our heart," Gill said. "This breaks our heart to go against him."
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