Greater Baton Rouge Business Report: Calling gambling's bluff

From Texas comes hopeful news for Louisiana casino operators and politicians. Despite urgings by the governor, the Texas Legislature has balked at a proposal to legalize gambling devices at up to 10 horse racetracks and dog racetracks. The governor can call legislators back into special session again, but it appears that time has run out on putting such a measure on the Nov. 2 constitutional ballot.

Louisiana, for now at least, has dodged a bomb. Lone Star State gambling would have quickly emptied the parking lots of Shreveport and Lake Charles casinos and shot a huge hole through the state budget that is already forecast to have at least a $500 million gap next year.

Gambling proponents in Texas folded when they realized they would not be able to simply change the lottery statute on their own instead of trying to amend the constitution, which would require voter approval.

The passing of the Texas threat caused the owners of Pinnacle Entertainment, which is constructing the state's swankiest casino resort in Lake Charles, to up its ante from $425 million to $465 million and to enlarge its hotel, already to be the tallest building in southwest Louisiana.

But across the lake, feelings weren't as heady, as owners of the Isle of Capri decided to weigh anchor on the smaller of its two riverboats, the least profitable in the state, and to seek a berth on the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish.

When the plan leaked out, however, the immediate response of Jefferson politicians was to keep a safe distance from it. Except for state Sen. Ken Hollis, R-Metairie, who attacked, vowing to fight the move "every step of the way." And there are plenty of steps, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to the levee board, to the parish council, to a vote of the people.

To Hollis, like other lawmakers who voted for riverboats and video poker, the economic development and tax-revenue song of the casinos no longer sounds as sweet. They can see that another suburban casino would bring in little new money but rather cut the old pie a little thinner, while adding to traffic congestion.

The Isle of Capri is putting a brave face on the negative reactions, saying it has other options. One wonders where. The state's casinos have about run out of relocation opportunities, as their waterfront markets have become saturated and land-based competition from Indian casinos and slots at race-tracks have increased.

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Video poker is feeling the pinch too. After the 1996 local option vote that turned off machines in 33 parishes, the relocation scramble caused the number of truck stop casinos to explode to more than 110 (up from about a dozen in the early 1990s when truck stops only catered to truckers).

Having about run out of sites near truck routes, the video poker developments are encroaching on neighbor-hoods. Not without a fight. In the past legislative session, Rep. Roy Burrell, D-Shreveport, pushed a bill to ban truck stop casinos within 500 feet of residential neighborhoods, which the poker lobby managed to kill. But when a truck stop was proposed for southeast Shreveport, a neighborhood petition drive caused the parish commission to deny a special use permit.

The Terrebonne Parish Council is considering a land-use ordinance to confine future truck stops to spots near U.S. 90 interchanges, which could defeat two applications for poker places closer to residences.

In the Vietnamese community of New Orleans East, a Catholic priest initially supported a truck stop proposal, but had an overnight change of heart (or call from the archdiocese) that caused him to join parishioners and neighbors opposing the necessary zoning change. For years, riverboats and video poker truck stops rolled over the Louisiana landscape, but now, in their quest for growth, they are running into a more formidable obstacle called NIMBY--Not In My Back Yard.

It's got to stop somewhere.

JOHN MAGINNIS is a Baton Rouge-based syndicated political columnist. Reach him through his Web site, www.lapolitics.com.