St. Tammany Parish voters have overwhelmingly turned down a $325 million waterfront casino gambling project that has been the target of litigation contending the electoral process violated the state constitution.
The Camellia Bay casino project, which featured a hotel and sports complex in Slidell, was rejected by 63% of voters earlier this month, with only 36.9% favoring the project. Unofficial results from all 170 precincts showed that 37,664 parish residents opposed the measure, compared to 22,031 supporting it.
Parish Sheriff Randy Smith and several police chiefs opposed the measure, expressing concerns that it could increase criminal activity in the region. Peninsula Pacific Entertainment and other proponents, however, said the project would bring economic benefits to the parish.
“We felt in our gut that it was going to be a double-digit victory,” the Rev. John Raymond, who opposed the casino, told the Louisiana Record, “but to be honest, such an incredible margin was beyond what we even could have hoped for, especially when we spent only a couple hundred thousand dollars and they spent well over $5 million.”
A potential increase in crime was on voters’ minds, according to Raymond, but so were the possible effects a casino could have on small businesses in the region.
“When people spend their discretionary income at a casino, then they don't go to eat at the restaurants or go to the boutiques and other places,” he said, noting that the overall result might have been business closures and blight.
Raymond had filed a lawsuit in the 22nd Judicial District that alleged the parish had failed to follow the state procedures required to allow riverboat gambling operations in Lake Pontchartrain. Had voters approved the project on Dec. 11, he said he would have appealed to the state Supreme Court to argue that the process violated the state constitution.
““I think this is absolutely the end of casino gambling in St. Tammany Parish for the foreseeable future,” Raymond said. “... I think that if any casino company were to look at St. Tammany Parish again, they’re going to say, ‘Why waste our money?’ ”
The group Stand Up St. Tammany played a key role in defeating the project, he said.
“Chris Jean and Chuck Walker are the founders of Stand Up St. Tammany, which is the group of about 600 businesses across the parish that will continue to keep St. Tammany Parish protected from casino gambling,” Raymond said.