PERRY GREEN: Card-playing furrier hopes to turn failed fish packing plant into money maker.
Anchorage poker star Perry Green has talked leaders of the state House into introducing a bill that could let Green start an international casino in Anchorage.
Green wants to turn the failed state-owned Alaska Seafood International plant into a casino that caters to well-heeled Asian tourists. It would bring jobs and tax dollars to the state, Green pledges.
It's a controversial idea. But he has intrigued key members of the state House, including House Speaker Pete Kott.
On Tuesday, with just five weeks left in this year's legislative session, the powerful House Finance Committee introduced a bill to create a gaming commission. The commission could grant a single license to a casino "in any municipality in the state with a population of at least 150,000," according to the bill. Anchorage is the only city that big in Alaska.
Valdez Republican Rep. John Harris, co-chair of the finance committee, said that he and the other co-chair, fellow Republican Rep. Bill Williams of Saxman, introduced the bill at the request of Green.
"We told him that we'll bring it forward and see what the discussion is," Harris said. "I've got an open mind on it at this point."
But with so much opposition to gambling in the Legislature and worries that the bill might open the door to tribal gaming, the bill could have a tough time. Resistance is especially strong in the state Senate.
"In this Legislature, I would say that would be a very difficult issue," said Wasilla Republican Sen. Lyda Green, a leader in the Senate.
But Perry Green is going to try. Green, the owner of David Green Master Furrier in Anchorage, is well known both inside and outside of Alaska political circles. A nationally known poker player, he has competed in events like the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Green has come to Juneau three times this year to push his casino idea and has four of the top Capitol lobbyists helping him out.
Green also has the ear of national casino impresario Jack Binnion, who recently sold Horseshoe Gaming Holdings for $917 million, according to the Financial Times. Green has brought Binnion, the son of a Las Vegas casino legend, up to Alaska to explore the idea of an Anchorage casino and to talk with legislators. Green said that Binnion could become involved in getting the project off the ground.
"He's interested," Green said.
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Green wants the casino to be in the former Alaska Seafood International Plant on Raspberry Road. The $50 million, 202,000-square-foot plant was built with state money in the 1990s and presented as an effort to diversify Alaska's economy. But the fish plant flopped and now the state is shopping for a new tenant.
He would need to get state law changed to make a casino legal. The bill introduced Tuesday, House Bill 552, would get him part of the way there. It would create a new Alaska Gaming Commission with the power to regulate existing gambling in Alaska, bingo, pull-tabs and raffles. And it "may" grant one license for an Anchorage casino. It doesn't have to do so, but the Legislature's stated intent in creating the commission would be to "benefit the people of Alaska by promoting tourism and assisting economic development," under the bill.
The governor would appoint the three members of the commission, who would serve three-year terms. Green said he would hope the commission would see the wisdom of allowing a single casino in Alaska. He has talked about splitting some of the profits with the state and the municipality. Numbers are rough, but he's figured that the cash-strapped state could get up to $20 million a year. Green called it a "tax on the willing."
He also said the casino would be a boon to all tourism-related businesses and could lead to more than 1,000 new jobs. Green said that his idea is to use the casino to attract visitors to Anchorage from the Far East.
"Alaska is the Last Frontier and every Last Frontier I've ever known has always had gambling casinos as part of its atmosphere," he said.
But Harris, even though he's a main sponsor of the bill, has concerns. Harris said he needs to investigate whether the state would be throwing open the door to tribal casinos if it passed the bill.
"That's one of the big questions," Harris said.
It's not an easy one to answer, said David Case, an Anchorage attorney who has specialized in tribal gaming issues. Federal law limits tribal gambling to games that are legal in the state where the tribe is located. The bill would eliminate that barrier, Case said, but there are others.
"It's a complicated area," Case said.
A tribal gambling operation has to be built on "Indian" land. Alaska Natives generally don't have reservation lands set aside by treaties, but there are disputes over whether Native allotments and other small pieces of land might count. There is one Indian reservation in Alaska, the tiny and remote Southeast village of Metlakatla.
Along with questions about tribal casinos, many legislators think gambling is a costly social ill and Alaska doesn't need a casino. Anchorage Democratic Rep. Harry Crawford, the most vocal anti-gambling advocate in the Legislature, said he hopes to enlist the Anchorage Baptist Temple in the fight against the bill.
Anchorage Baptist Temple Pastor Jerry Prevo said he thinks the social costs would outweigh the benefits. He said he has heard from pastors elsewhere of poor people spending their dollars on gambling, leaving them in need of help. But Prevo said he doesn't plan an active campaign.
Crawford said he was upset that bill didn't get sent to the Labor and Commerce Committee, on which he and some other gambling opponents sit. Kott pulled its referral to that committee.
"It's real obvious that they were trying an end-run around us," Crawford said.
Kott told Crawford it didn't go to that committee because an earlier bill to create a state gaming commission -- which didn't provide the power to authorize a casino -- had already passed labor and commerce. The new bill was sent only to the finance committee.
Kott has expressed interest in the casino, but said Tuesday that he wants to leave the fate of the bill up to whatever feedback comes in from the public. Kott said his polls have shown people are split on the idea. There's little time left in the legislative session for it to be passed, he added.
But Crawford said he wouldn't be surprised if casino advocates gain ground.
"I think they are going to pull out all the stops trying to make it happen," he said.
Source: Sean Cockerham, Anchorage Daily News
