Cabinet approves Baywalk Casino! | St. Lucia STAR

by Nicole Mc Donald

While in opposition former Prime Minister Sir John Compton made it very clear that his opinion was that casinos were the devil! The ‘Father of the Nation,’—who is credited with having dreamed up most of St Lucia’s current industries and infrastructure—at the thought of a casino being built in St Lucia forecasted that “crime would sky-rocket.”

At the time Compton was responding to the fact that the Gaming Control Authority had approved a license for American Bernie Burkholder, formerly of Treasure Bay casinos. Sir John even called on churches to take a stand. Father Michel Francis responded by saying that the Catholic churches’ silence “was by no means consent” and that a casino would do “untold damage to the island’s social fabric.” But Compton is gone now and apparently with him some of the ideas he had when he led the United Workers Party back into power in 2006.

Needless to say Treasure Bay has yet to build a casino in St Lucia even though a site was mapped out near Pigeon Island and the Gaming Control Act was amended in 2003 to accommodate their application allowing for a stand-alone casino. So why is the casino issue making news now? BBC Caribbean reported earlier this week that Cabinet had approved for a casino at Baywalk, loosely known as the Chreiki mall, which is currently under construction in Rodney Bay. Construction began in August 2007 on the shopping mall, set to house 60 stores, indoor parking, as well as the island’s first casino!

Chairman of the Gaming Control Authority, Lisle Chase, confirmed this information to the STAR this week, but said that though Cabinet had approved a site for the casino the Gaming Control Authority had not yet recommended that an operator be approved to run the casino. In fact one operator who applied to run the casino had already been denied. This is not surprising said Chase who admitted that an operator of a casino must be squeaky clean and undergo stringent background checks.

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