Casino employees get year job guarantee
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The new operator of the Thousand Islands casino has assured its 420 employees that their jobs are guaranteed for a year after the management changeover in early 2016.
The Ontario Gaming East Limited Partnership, which has won the right to operate the casino, gave the assurances at a meeting of mayors and top officials from the municipalities in the OLG’s eastern gaming bundle. The casino is the sixth-largest employer in Leeds and Grenville.
OGELP said its immediate focus was on assuming day-to-day operations of the casino outside of Gananoque and the OLG slots at Kawartha Downs. The company would then concentrate on construction of a new casino in the Belleville area and upgrading the operations at Kawartha.
Joe Baptista, mayor of the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, described the meeting as “positive” from the point of view of his township and the town of Gananoque.
Baptista said the new operator has put aside some money for renovations to the 15-year-old casino, and for now the company is focused on the transition.
The mayor said the fact that the company wants to renovate the existing premises doesn’t rule out the possibility of expansion in the future.
The company was told by Baptista and Gananoque Mayor Erika Demchuk that the municipalities have cleared the way for expansion of the casino, he said.
“We’ve done everything we can to remove any restrictions on the property in terms of what they can built,” Baptista said. “We’ve opened things up so that whatever they want to develop and whatever they want to discuss, it’s wide open.”
Once the transition is done and the renovations completed, Baptista said the company seemed open to further expansion.
“They are going to be open-minded to sit down and talk about the different needs that this region has,” he said.
OGELP now has a game plan of first focusing on developing a new casino in the Belleville area, but Baptista said that priority could change once the transition is finished.
Baptista said the TLTI is far ahead of the other municipalities in having paved the way for future casino development.
“Of all the municipalities at the table, our municipality has done the most at removing the barriers,” said Baptista, adding that the TLTI and Gananoque have the advantage of having the existing casino.
For the past year, the TLTI has been busy rezoning the casino land and adjacent property to allow for casino/commercial development. The height restrictions have been lifted on the casino itself. Gananoque has agreed to extend sewer and water services to any casino expansion.
Baptista said he is promoting the idea that a convention centre is a good fit for the property around the casino. There is no large convention facility along the eastern stretch of Hwy. 401 — the closest is in Ottawa, he said.
The mayor said that he is hoping to persuade private investors to build one adjacent to the casino, or the casino to expand to include convention space.
“I think there is a compelling business case that it is required in this area,” he said.
In September, OGELP paid $50.4 million to acquire all of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s assets in the eastern gaming bundle, including the Thousand Islands casino. OGELP’s majority shareholder, at 50.1 per cent, is the B.C.-based Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, which owns and runs 16 gaming properties in British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Washington state. Clairvest, a Toronto-based private equity management company, is the second-largest shareholder. It recently sold its interest in New Brunswick’s only casino to Great Canadian for $50 million. There is a third investor, a Toronto man, whose name has not been released.
While the company will run the casino day to day and own the assets, the OLG will continue to make the casino payments to Gananoque and the TLTI. The municipalities split about $3.4 million a year, based on a percentage of slot and some table revenues.
The OLG confirmed at the meeting that it would continue to be responsible to distributing the money, a fact Demchuk found reassuring.
“Having ongoing revenue sharing confirmed by OLG will allow our respective communities to plan well into the future without fear of lost income,” she said. “This assurance is timely as both municipalities enter into budget discussions.”
