Casino ads air rivals’ scandals elsewhere

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Feb 8, 2008 - Page: 1B
• This story was originally published in the Feb. 7 edition of The Advocate.
  

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Mudslinging in the Baton Rouge casino battle is taking an even nastier tone heading into the final days before Saturday’s referendum on Pinnacle Entertainment’s $250 million casino proposal for south Baton Rouge.

Concerned at the prospect of losing business, the existing downtown riverboat casinos have launched a television ad to tell voters that Pinnacle had its license suspended and was fined $2.26 million in 2002 for bringing prostitutes to a golf tournament sponsored by its Belterra Casino in Indiana.

Pinnacle officials claim the incident is ancient history, and point out that their company underwent a total management shakeup as a result.

Meanwhile, Pinnacle is running an ad that slaps back at the parent company of the Belle of Baton Rouge for recently having its gambling license yanked by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.

The ads are the latest salvos in the ongoing battle that has cost millions of dollars and dominated local airways, and mailboxes, for weeks.

In campaign finance reports, Pinnacle disclosed spending $6.5 million over the past year to sell to East Baton Rouge voters the proposed casino at Gardere Lane and the Mississippi River. Under the state constitution, any new casino or other expansion of gambling must get the approval of parish voters.

The existing casinos have reported spending $2 million to persuade East Baton Rouge voters to cast ballots against Pinnacle’s proposal, but acknowledge they aren’t reporting any expenses that occurred before the Feb. 9 referendum was set last fall.

After complaining that the existing boats were exaggerating the facts in their ads, Pinnacle began running an ad Wednesday targeting Columbia Sussex Corp., the parent company of one of the existing boats, the Belle of Baton Rouge.

The ad points out that the New Jersey Casino Control Commission refused to renew Tropicana Casino’s license to operate in New Jersey. The commission’s Web site noted that Tropicana’s compliance record had been “abysmal” since Columbia Sussex Corp. acquired it in 2006.

Repeated efforts to contact Columbia Sussex Corp. in Kentucky for a response failed Wednesday because no one was answering the phone. All calls, except those specifying an extension number, were disconnected.

Pinnacle political consultant Billy Rimes said Columbia Sussex’s problems in Atlantic City could affect the company’s licenses in Nevada and Louisiana.

“There’s nothing that they can say about it because it’s all absolutely true,” Rimes said of his ad.

Political consultant Michael Beychok, who is coordinating the media campaign for the existing boats, said he’s not surprised by Pinnacle’s attack ad.