The proposal, made by a governor who had campaigned in 2003 on preventing the spread of gambling, represented how integral a part of the state’s economy the casinos have become in just 15 years. Lawmakers approved the measure to bring the casinos onshore, and Barbour signed it into law on Oct.

He continued: “A small adjustment of a few hundred feet, but consistent with the original law of being tied to the water, is the best change, not only for getting the thousands of employees back to work sooner, but to have even more employees later and make our coast a world-class destination resort.” “We can’t return the casinos to the way they were. “You’ve seen the catastrophic destruction of the casinos and the destruction wrought by those behemoths when they crashed into buildings and vehicles,” he said on the first day of the special session.

Haley Barbour, in his opening statements to lawmakers on the session’s first day on Sept. What emerged in a special legislative session in early October was a new law allowing casino operators to build on land - albeit only within 800 feet of the waterfront. 29, 2005, the big question was not whether, but where to rebuild the huge casinos that have made the region the country’s third-largest casino market.Īnd with the risks to the city’s economic engine in clear view along the battered beachfront, the debate over allowing onshore gambling quickly made its way to the state’s capital. So as public officials, residents and gaming operators mulled what to do with Biloxi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which hit the coastal community on Aug.

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