TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – Thursday could be a consequential day for Atlantic City, depending on what happens in Trenton.
Rival plans to ask voters whether to approve casinos in northern New Jersey and an aid package for the struggling gambling resort are up for consideration in the Legislature, with potentially far-reaching effects.
Committees in the state Senate and Assembly will hold public hearings on the plans for two new casinos, but both chambers still don’t agree on a single measure to put before voters.
The Senate version would require that both new casinos be owned by existing Atlantic City casino operators, and it would initially send 50 percent of gambling tax revenue they generate to compensate Atlantic City for projected losses from in-state competition. The Assembly version only applies the existing ownership requirement to one of the casinos, and would send 35 percent to Atlantic City.
So far, Senate president Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto have dug in on their own proposals. Voters would decide on the result of their negotiations in the November general election.
The proposals do not specify where the two new casinos would be located, but the leading contenders are at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford and in Jersey City.
Before the hearings Thursday, the head of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers to compromise and come up with one plan to put on the ballot.
“With the impasse of the current versions of the Senate and Assembly bills to expand casino gaming in NJ, the MRC is urging our legislators to find further compromise,” said Jim Kirkos, the chamber’s president. Democratic Assemblyman Ralph Caputo and several labor leaders have voiced similar calls for compromise in recent days.
New Jersey’s Constitution currently limits casino gambling to Atlantic City, and a voter referendum would need to pass to amend it and permit casinos elsewhere.
On Thursday afternoon, the Senate is due to vote on the remainder of an Atlantic City aid plan that has already been approved by the Assembly. Its key measure would let the city’s eight casinos make specified payments in lieu of taxes for 15 years, giving them cost certainty and preventing them from appealing their taxes, something they have done with great success in recent years.
The package also includes measures also redirecting casino investment taxes to help pay down Atlantic City’s municipal debt, and abolishing the Atlantic City Alliance, which marketed the resort to other parts of the country.
If the Senate approves them, the bills would then go to Gov. Chris Christie, who vetoed an earlier version of the package. The Legislature made changes Christie requested, including having the $30 million a year that would have continued to fund the Atlantic City Alliance be held by the state for two years until the city adopts a financial reform package acceptable to the state. The money would have gone straight to the city under the original version of the bill.
___
Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
