Terrace city council members have accepted a proposal by the provincial crown corporation which runs the legal gambling business in B.C. to lift the cap on the number of gambling machines at the Terrace Chances Casino.
The current cap of 75 machines, put in place by council in 2007 when the proposal for a casino was first introduced, is insufficient to meet demand, representatives from the B.C. Lottery Corporation told council members at a committee of the whole session Oct. 19.
Although corporation representatives did not provide statistics, they said anecdotal information and customer comments indicated people were being turned away, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, because there are not enough machines.
“Player utilization performs way above provincial average and has been for quite some time,” lottery corporation official Jerry Williamson told council members.
He said corporation officials believe there are enough people wishing to gamble to justify placing 124 gambling machines at the casino right away. The current cap consists of 74 slot machines and one electronic table machine.
Eliminating the cap altogether to allow a first increase to 124 machines has the potential to add $250,000 to city revenues from the 10 per cent of the casino’s annual net profits it receives, city economic development manager Michael Pucci told council. The city already receives upwards of $773,000 a year.
Pucci told council members the 10 per cent of net profits now going to the city has been traditionally spent on its paving program.
“The key to this is the increase in our paving costs is clearly going to outweigh any sort of ability for the current cap to keep up the pace as the current machines are currently maxed out,” he said by way of the rationale for increasing the number of slot and other gambling machines.
Although council members Inder Dhillon, Brian Downie, Chris Apps and Dave Gordon — who were at the committee of the whole meeting — gave their approval to eliminating the gaming machine cap it must now go before a regular council meeting.
That means the minutes of the committee of the whole will be on the agenda of the Nov. 14 council meeting for approval.
There is no formal mechanism in place for council to seek public comment on the proposed cap elimination.
And lottery officials told council members there is no regulatory or legislative requirement to do so.
City officials are now saying there will be an opportunity for public comment before council officially adopts the minutes of the Oct. 19 committee of the whole meeting
Mayor Sean Bujtas opened the meeting and introduced those in attendance but then declared a conflict of interest because he’s the general manager of Chances Terrace. He then left the room, requesting that no one speak to him afterward about the proposal.