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Sugar Creek Pushes for Casino Amidst Opposition and Competition

Posted on October 3rd, 2010

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The state of Missouri has recently made available one license for casino operations. All interested parties have taken off the gloves and let the battle intensify. For Sugar Creek, their plea for the license to be awarded to their town has gathered steam as the Gaming Commission of the state came to their town so that they could hear the arguments for and against the proposed casino. The casino Sugar Creek is proposing will be a riverboat facility off Highway 291. Aside from Sugar Creek, three other towns also want to have casinos in their area, and the state commission has so far played very fair, not letting anyone feel that their town is ahead of the pack.

Sugar Creek officials believe that a new casino in their town would be a source of revenue that would strengthen education and add employment opportunities in both construction and the casino itself. Of course, not everyone is on board the casino proposal. Troy Stremming, employee of the Ameristar Casino claims that a new casino woul not really be a large income earner as the state projects it to be. He said, “The Kansas City market, with the soon to open Kansas Speedway casino, is very saturated right now. But what we’ve seen in this down economy is our business has backed off as well. Our revenues have been flat and to put another casino in this market at this time doesn’t seem to be a good idea.”

Independence Party Senator Victor Callahan, who is an outspoken advocate for casinos in the state, claims, “That’s just an incumbent gamer who doesn’t want the competition. It will keep the Missouri gaming competitive with the prospect of Kansas adding a boat. I think it’s time we move forward, not retreat.” Jim Mathewson, the Gaming Commission of Missouri chairman said that his interest was piqued by some speakers who have testified for and against the casino. Moreover, he also took note of the comments of some speakers that the manner the city is handling a plan by another industry, mining, to expand in the town. He opined, “Could they handle this issue if they couldn’t handle that one well, at least in those people’s opinion.” He said that the decisions of the state will be based on a number of factors, including something that even surprised him: a speaker in the forum said that she doesn’t know anything about the proposal because no one talked to her about it. He added, “It’s important the people had a voice.”

The Gaming Commission says its study will be concluding its study on all four towns which have expressed interest in hosting the casino by October. After that, then everyone should know which town will have the “honor” of hosting the casino. With the pronouncements of the Gaming Commission chairman, it seems pretty clear that the state wants the license to be awarded to the town that will make the casino rake the most money. Among those in attendance at the Wednesday town hall meeting held at the Mike Onka Memorial Building were those in favor (including a former mayor of the town, several residents and an executive of Jackson County) and those who were in opposition (including representatives from the Port authority of Kansas City, Ameristar Casinos Inc., and also some residents of the area). The main topic of the meeting was the authenticity of the claims forwarded by Paragon Gaming Missouri LLC, a casino license applicant, that a casino will be opening 1,000 plus employment opportunities.

The former mayor of Sugar Creek from 1981 to 1993, Jack O’Renick, said that he does not want the scenario from when Amoco had its refinery closed in 1982 to be ever repeated. “Our quality of life has not been the same since,” he claims. The proposal for a casino for Sugar Creek has local support, according to Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders, which he said is different from the casino proposal in Cape Girardeau, which is said to gather lukewarm support that it would take a referendum on November 2 to really gauge public support. Aside from Ameristar, the representative from the Kansas City Port Authority, Vincent Gauthier, also expressed disagreement. He said that the plight of the current casino already operating in the state would be endangered, plus the fact that the revenue generating capacity of the news casino is not really guaranteed yet.