Kingston Casino Plans Abandoned

Published: October 29, 2014 04:59 pm EDT

On Tuesday, October 28 in the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park, Finance Minister Charles Sousa said that the provincial government will abandon its plans to relocate the Thousand Island Casino from Gananoque to Kingston.

An article by insidebrockville.com explains that on Monday (October 27), on a municipal election ballot question, residents in Kingston voted two to one against the idea of having a casino located in Kingston.

A report by gananoquereporter.com states that even thought the results were not legally binding due to the fact that voter turnout was less than 50 per cent, Kingston Mayor-elect Bryan Paterson and other council members said they would respect the voters' wishes.

Kingston’s position means that the city would not technically be a ‘willing host community’ in regard to brick-and-mortar gaming expansion. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. has gone on the record as saying that it will not impose casino expansion on any municipality that does not want it. As the gananoquereporter.com article explains, Minister Sousa echoed those sentiments at Queen’s Park Tuesday when the topic came up.

“The government will not impose a location of a gaming site on a municipality, so we will respect Kingston's desire not to do so,” Sousa said during Question Period on Tuesday after queries on the subject from Steve Clark, the MPP for Leeds-Grenville.

(With files from gananoquereporter.com and insidebrockville.com)

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