Next week voters go to the polls to pick the next president of the United States. Rhode Island voters also vote on several statewide issues, including the proposal to build a casino in Tiverton.
As part of our Rhody Votes ’16 coverage Rhode Island Public Radio’s John Bender headed to Tiverton, where residents are seemed lukewarm about the casino.
Right now Rhode Island has only one full casino, Twin River in Lincoln, where you can play table games like poker, blackjack and roulette. The group that owns Twin River wants to build a second casino in Tiverton, but first they need approval from voters statewide and in this seaside town of 15,000 residents.
“I spent all of last summer and all of last fall, literally in people’s living rooms, at their kitchen tables talking about this,” said John Taylor, head of Twin River Management Group. Taylor wants this proposal to go differently from a casino rejected by Newport residents two years ago.
“We didn’t go into town and say, ‘here’s this great casino, you’re going to love it,’” said Taylor. “What we said was, we have a license and a piece of land that we control. Let’s have a conversation about what works, what your concerns are and we’ll take all that into account before we present a proposal to the town council.”
That proposal is an 85,000 square foot facility with 1,000 slot machines and 32 table games.
Taylor said the project comes at a crucial time. Rhode Island relies on gambling revenue for about a third of the state budget, and faces increasing competition from Massachusetts. A casino in Taunton is in the works, and a slots parlor has already opened in Plainville, a 20 minute drive from northern Rhode Island.
Taylor wants a new casino in Tiverton to replace Newport Grand, a slots parlor his company also owns. The idea is to boost revenue with table games and provide easy access for the customers, many of which come from southeastern Massachusetts.
“So the vast majority of our players have to go through 21 red lights to get to Newport Grand, this will put them much closer to where they live and be much more convenient for them to get to,” said Taylor.
According to a study commissioned by Twin River, the Tiverton facility could generate some 50 million dollars a year for the state, nearly doubling the revenue Newport Grand produced last year. The town of Tiverton would receive $3 million in revenue and $1 million in tax relief annually. But casino opponent Amy Veri isn’t convinced. Veri is running for State Senate in a district that includes portions of Tiverton and Little Compton.
“Yes it seems, oh $4 million is great we’re going to get this money up front, but look what you’re losing,” said Veri. “You’re losing the rural character of Tiverton, you’re losing this quality of life that you have.
Veri thinks the proposed arrangement between the town and casino is a bad deal. The payments are only guaranteed for about 12 years, though that could be extended. It sounds all right to resident Paul Truppi, who has a “Yes on One” yard sign planted in front of his house.
“I mean there’s nothing else going on that’s going to help us out with tax relief, and every year your taxes go up, so hopefully it’s something that’ll help out with tax relief,” said Truppi.
Truppi has lived in Tiverton for more than two decades, and said the town needs the development.
“The town doesn’t want to let anything else in,” said Truppi. “Every other project that comes down, they’ll find a reason to stop it so.”
The proposed location for the Tiverton casino on the Massachusetts border lies in a more rural part of the town, about four miles from the picturesque waterfront where residents squeeze into the local coffee shop, Coastal Roasters. Inside, 26-year-old resident Nick McGaw said he hasn’t decided which way he will vote.
“Like my whole life I’ve always heard we’re going to get a mall, we’re going to do this, and it never seems to come,” said McGaw. “It never happens. It is out of the way, like that’s better than having it right there.”
62-year-old Paul Lopes said he has doubts about the financial success of a casino, but he’s also undecided.
“Is it going to lower taxes? No,” said Lopes. “Taxes will stay the same at best. But I’m also grateful for the infrastructure that will be in place when the casino goes south, because I think it will.”
Lopes thinks the town could repurpose the casino for events if the business goes under. The infrastructure also includes a traffic circle designed to mitigate congestion near the casino entrance on Stafford Road.
“But the folks who live up in the Stafford road area are against it,” said Lopes. “Especially a couple businesses up there who are afraid their zoning will change, and their property will get sold, or tempted to be sold, and I understand their point.”
Standing outside the coffee shop Richard Marley said he’s opposed to the casino. He’s worried it could change this small town where he settled with his family.
“One of the reasons that we moved to Tiverton was that we like the quiet, quaint, family, and I think that the traffic and everything along with everything that comes with a casino would get old pretty quick,” said Marley.
Driving through Tiverton, you’ll see plenty of lawn signs for and against the casino, but a grassroots opposition effort never responded to messages. Twin River on the other hand spent more than a million dollars in September alone on campaign ads, consulting and public relations.
Clyde Barrow, who studies gambling and public policy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said if state revenue is the goal, putting it closer to Massachusetts makes sense.
“Putting it in the position to compete with both Plainridge and potentially at some point, an Indian casino in Taunton, Massachusetts, certainly makes a lot of sense in terms of the state’s gambling policy,” said Barrow.
But Barrow said as more casinos open in New England, returns will get thinner. Rhode Island voters have approved two gambling proposals in recent elections, and analysts expect this measure to past statewide too. The question is whether a majority of Tiverton voters will also support it.
