Should York County have casino gambling? Catawba, Panthers plans highlight conflict.
Two decisions less than a week apart contrast the sides of casino gambling in South Carolina. And the fact is it would take a big, and now unlikely, decision before gamers could lay bets here.
On March 12 a U.S. Department of Interior decision made way for the Catawba Indian Nation to move forward with plans for a casino — in Kings Mountain, N.C. The Catawba Nation reservation is about 700 acres east of Rock Hill.
The Herald reported the $273 million casino project almost 50 miles away would bring more than 5,000 construction and 4,000 permanent jobs, a hotel and restaurants. “This is an economic development project,” said Catawba Chief Bill Harris. “The fact that the tribe has no economic development currently, that’s the big plus. With that, it allows us to open doors we weren’t able to open before.”
The Catawbas could not have put that casino in South Carolina.
Four days after that decision, York County Council voted on economic incentive agreements for the Carolina Panthers headquarters move to Rock Hill. Council voted to move forward only after an amendment stating that casino gambling will not take place there, and any future addition of it would void the incentive agreement for an expected $1 billion project.
The team would have to pay back any economic incentives in full, per the vote, if casino gambling comes.
“I will not support tax incentives for casino gambling,” said Councilwoman Christi Cox. “And I don’t think that casino gambling should be allowed in an industrial park that’s incentivized by the county. And we shouldn’t be cutting taxes for that use.”
The vote to exclude casino gambling narrowly passed at 4-3, with three council members from the Rock Hill area supporting the incentive agreement without the amendment. Rock Hill and York County planners addressed casino gambling after the team introduced it as a possibility in a proposed development agreement.
South Carolina law prohibits casino gambling.
Some city and county planners in recent months said they don’t want to allow casinos as an approved use for the Panthers project even if state law someday allows it, while others said it’s a state decision, and had no problem leaving the option in the development agreement.
Will casinos come to York County?
In November, Panthers Chief Operating Officer Mark Hart addressed Rock Hill City Council as that group considered a development agreement and annexation for the property. Hart told the group there were several requests in the development agreement, from casinos to a nearly 500-foot tower, that may never come but the team wanted them allowed.
“It’s a little bit like the kitchen sink,” Hart said then. “We’re throwing everything in there because we don’t have all the answers. We don’t know what’s going to occur sometimes a year from now, or five years from now, or 10 years from now, and certainly not 30 years from now.”
He specifically talked gambling, which is under consideration or recently allowed elsewhere after a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision. A Winthrop University poll in 2017 found most South Carolina residents favored legalized casinos as a way to pay for road needs, according to The State newspaper.
Yet if casinos are coming here, it would take a drastic shift among legislators.
“The answer to that is none,” state Sen. Wes Climer said of momentum to allow casino gambling. “There is no momentum. I don’t see it happening.”
Legislators today focus on impacts from the COVID-19 coronavirus, funding state services, the possibility of an economic stimulus plan should the virus plunge the economy, Climer said. Casinos aren’t on the shortlist.
“That conversation is really too premature to really contemplate,” Climer said. “It would be exceedingly low odds, to use a gambling metaphor.”
Legalized gambling in neighboring states wouldn’t likely speed the process for South Carolina, he said.
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” he said. “It is not something that has come up to any meaningful degree this year. And given where the focus is this year...it’s certainly not happening any time this year.”
Climer represents the area of Rock Hill that includes the Panthers site, near mile marker 81 off I-77. State Rep. Gary Simrill doesn’t have the site in his district, but he works near it and represents nearby properties.
“In politics and in life, never say never,” Simrill said of legalized casino gambling.
Yet, he said, change isn’t likely. City or county stances on potential casino gambling at the Panthers site are moot, Simrill said, without a state change.
“Glancing down the road for as far as you could see, I don’t see that happening in the near future,” he said. “There is always a bill that legalizes casinos and gambling in South Carolina. Those bills have never made it to the floor of the house or the senate.”
Even the massive Panthers project hailed by the Gov. Henry McMaster and other elected officials as a watershed for the state, a deal that required swift law changes last year to incentivize professional sports teams, came without any notion of legalized casino gambling.
“The economic development that the Panthers project brings not only to York County but this entire region, it’s transformative for our area,” Simrill said. “But the state put no emphasis on putting any casino gambling, and I think the county followed suit.”
Rep. Bruce Bryant serves Dist. 48 in the state house, an area that covers all or parts of Rock Hill, Tega Cay and Lake Wylie. The district includes the more than 200-acre site planned for Panthers headquarters off I-77. Prior to the state house, Bryant served as sheriff in York County from 1997 to 2017.
Bryant said he was surprised by recent reports that casino gambling is a discussion for the Panthers site.
“I certainly do not condone gambling in any way, in any manner,” Bryant said. “I don’t want to see that open up Pandora’s Box for other gambling.”
His views on gambling haven’t changed since his time as sheriff. A law enforcement career of more than four decades shades Bryant’s view, particularly the video poker outlawed by the state two decades ago.
“You don’t have the newspaper to print all the problems and issues,” Bryant said. “A lot of it was the social ills. From divorces to people losing everything they had due to gambling addiction. I’ve worked suicides. We’ve worked murders that were all over video poker. It goes on and on.”
Bryant said the perils of gambling addiction are difficult to understand for people who haven’t seen it firsthand.
“I would be a voice against legalized gambling,” Bryant said.
Other voices carry a different opinion.
A former state education secretary and treasurer leads Palmetto Forum for Gaming Studies, according to its website. It’s a group that researches policy decisions to see if legalized gambling could be used to help pay for key public services.
“As a former state representative, I understand how the legislative process works and as state treasurer I have seen the need for additional revenue streams,” co-chairman Converse Chellis says on the website. “I’m not in favor of increasing the tax burden on our citizens…it’s time to be more creative.”
A 2017 report from The State mentions repeated attempts by state legislators to introduce bills that would allow casino gambling.
“If this state was operated like a business, we would have had casinos years ago,” State Rep. Todd Rutherford said in the article. “What we’ve got to do is make sure we’re not leaving money on the table.”
