Senate prez: Gaming important for tourism
Newport, Rhode Island voters will once again weigh in on the question of tables games at the Newport Grand casino, which now offers video slots, simulcasting of sports events and off-track betting.
Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed, who backed a second referendum, supported the addition of tables two years ago, but has not declared her position this time around. According to the Associated Press, Paiva-Weed helped draft the bill that laid out the terms of the original deal: Newport would get an estimated $1.5 million per year from the state’s share of video lottery revenues for the first six years, and then $1 million per year after that.
Investors planning to buy Newport Grand, including ex-Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino, will underwrite a $40 million makeover of the facility first, the AP reported.
Paiva-Weed calls Newport Grand “very much a part of our tourism economy” and Rhode Island’s third-largest revenue source. She has said she is concerned about the impact of new gaming in Massachusetts on the local gaming hall.
“That being said, I think that it’s important that we diversify our economy,” she said.
Republican Mike Smith, Paiva Weed’s opponent and a first-timer in the Senate race, has said the dependence on casino revenues is no way to boost state coffers. “Senator Paiva-Weed should spend her time thinking about improving the overall economy and not about the casino that is being purchased by political insider Joseph Paolino,” he said. “Newport voters overwhelmingly rejected the expansion two years ago. Does Paiva-Weed intend to have us keep voting until we ‘get it right,’ according to her wishes?”
Smith, who owns a small electrical supply company in Newport, jumped into the race unexpectedly, he said, only when he saw no one else taking up the challenge. “Probably a week before I filed, I had no clue I was going to be running for office,” he said.
