The city council of Tiverton, Rhode Island voted to ask the legislature to include the Twin River casino referendum on Rhode Island’s November 2016 ballot. If passed it would allow Twin River to relocate the Newport Grand casino to Tiverton, which would include building a two-story, 85,000 square foot casino in a remote part of the town adjacent to the Massachusetts state line.
The council voted 6-1 in favor of the proposal.
The goal is to put the measure on the state and local ballot by November of 2016.
Twin River Management Group’s $75 million Tiverton casino plans call for an 85,000 square foot facility with 1,000 slot machines, 32 gaming tables, a restaurant and other amenities. It would also have an 84-room hotel. Some of the money would be spent on land acquisition: a 45-acre parcel a few hundred yards from the state line.
Twin River has slowly been working to build up public support for the proposal, which it first unveiled in April. It has held dozens of small and large community meetings to share its plans.
One purpose of the relocated casino would be to preserve as much of the state’s gambling revenues from poaching by the casinos that the Bay State has built and will build over the next few years.
Issues during the council meeting include finances, traffic and the effects on the city’s quality of life. About 200 people turned up for the meeting. The council took testimony for over an hour.
Obviously a big factor in the council vote was the $49 million to $75 million that Twin River says could pay the state and the $4 million it would pay the town.
In Lincoln, host community to the Twin River casino, town administrator T. Joseph Almond, quoted by the Providence Journal claims that the casino has “not affected the quality of life,” adding, “There are always tradeoffs when you host a commercial property.”
Eight years ago Twin City’s greyhound track was transformed into a racino hotel complex.
Almond, who says he is not a gaming advocate, noted that his city gets 1.45 percent of table gaming revenue and taxes on casino property and equipment. The casino also pays for emergency services and police. He added, “The money is a good thing, but how you manage it is important.”
Reasoning that casino money is not necessarily a stable source of income to depend upon, Lincoln set a cap of $5.2 million for the revenue that the town uses in its operating budget and squirrels away the remainder in a restricted fund to maintain parks, roads and other municipal property.
“Our thinking was, ‘Someday there’s going to be competition,’ ” said Almond.
Initially skeptical of a casino, the residents approved of the casino’s request to add table games by a 70 percent vote.
