House Floor Leader Edwin Propst listens during a session.
“WHAT took you so long?” asked House Floor Leader Edwin Propst in reaction to Commonwealth Casino Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero’s suggestion to remove the exclusivity of the Saipan casino license.
Deleon Guerrero also said that the Legislature should consider amending the law to allow three or more casino licenses.
“I’ve always opposed monopolies,” Propst said. “I’ve said monopolies are not good. We talked about that before,” he said.
He recalled that prior to the enactment of P.L. 18-56, which legalized casino gaming on Saipan, he and some of his colleagues in the Legislature questioned the issuance of only one casino license.
“Go back to everything I’ve ever said. We opposed just having one license. We always felt that there should be more than one license. It should have been at least two or three. Monopolies never benefit the economy. They only benefit the monopoly stakeholder. No one else. Just them,” Propst said.
As for Deleon Guerrero’s recommendation to impose a gaming tax on the casino investor instead of requiring contributions to a community benefit fund, Propst said, “We have tried to introduce that in the past. It was always shut down and rejected and it was getting killed.”
Propst said, had the CNMI imposed a gaming tax in the very beginning, the Commonwealth would have had a little bit more income. But probably, he added, “it would have been blown anyway” because of the way the CNMI government back then was spending money.
According to Propst:
“First, we have to prove that…there will be a demand, that there will be tourists who will be flocking for the casino. So there has to be an economic feasibility study on that.
“Second, the NMI must ensure there is an honest company that can actually show the books.
“Third, require the investor to put down the deposit and whatever the NMI government feels is right.
“Fourth, require a completion bond for any type of building that the casino investor is going to put up.”
Propst added, “We need to learn from the huge mistake that we are dealing with up to now.”
