As coal mining jobs disappear in eastern Kentucky, officials in Jenkins near the Virginia border have proposed building a casino on Pine Mountain. The Raven Rock Lodge and Resort would include a 300-room hotel, an adventure park with mountain-bike trails and zip lines–and a 150,000 square foot casino. Jenkins Mayor Todd DePriest, a former mining equipment salesman, said, “We’re standing here bleeding. We’ve got to make a play on getting people to come to the mountains.”
The numbers tell the story: Eastern Kentucky had 14,301 coal jobs in third quarter 2011 and 3,896 in third quarter 2017, according to the state Energy and Environment Cabinet. Coal industry jobs in Letcher County, where the Consolidation Coal Company built Jenkins in 1911, fell from 583 in 2012 to 48 in third quarter 2017. Jenkins’ population declined from 2,401 in 2000 to 2,203 in 2010, with an estimated 2,070 in mid-2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. DePriest said the city has reduced its workforce and can’t afford to repave the streets. “We need something to offset all that,” he said.
Casino investor James Hibbitts said Raven Rock would be “a total family destination.” He noted every state bordering Kentucky has casino gambling except Virginia and Tennessee. “We’re losing revenue across those borders. I do believe it’s got a chance because of the time we’re in. This place is unique, like no other,” Hibbitts said.
The investor group has registered a corporation, set up a web site and a Facebook page, negotiated a development agreement with Jenkins and lobbied legislators. They had a display at the recent Shaping Our Appalachian Region meeting, an effort to boost regional employment.
In and around Jenkins, residents have signed petitions in support of a referendum in 2018 to approve a constitutional amendment legalizing casino gambling. State Reps. Rick Rand and Dennis Keene filed legislation allowing such a referendum and state Senator Morgan McGarvey said he’ll co-sponsor a casino bill with state Rep. Jerry Miller that also would let voters approve a constitutional amendment legalizing casinos, with the state’s share of revenue going to paying pension costs for 20 years. The state’s major pension systems have a total unfunded liability of more than $41 billion.
The legislation could face opposition from the state’s influential horse industry, which would insist casinos be established at horse racetracks. In December 2014 the board of the Kentucky Equine Education Project voted to not support legislation allowing casino gambling in Kentucky over concern that non-racetrack casinos would take gambling revenue from the tracks. A 2012 study indicated allowing casinos at eight Kentucky horse racetracks would generate $464 million for the state the first full year of operation. That amount could be smaller now since there’s more competition for gambling dollars, but McGarvey said casinos in Kentucky would generate $100 million for the state at a minimum. “Let’s recapture some of the money that’s leaving the state,” McGarvey said.
State Senate President Robert Stivers said he does not support legalizing casino gambling in Kentucky and sees little indication the legislature will approve a casino measure in 2018. Governor Matt Bevin previously said casino gambling will not happen in Kentucky because its societal cost “is not proven to work for states that have done it.”
