Last week, lawmakers withdrew two bills that would have permitted the expansion of gaming in the state in response to opposition from residents and leaders in South Florida.
Legislation in the House and the Senate regarding gaming in Florida would have allowed gaming licenses to be transferred to another location within thirty miles. Jeffrey Soffer, the owner of the famed Fontainebleau resort on Miami Beach, is believed to have been a major proponent of the concept.
Soffer wanted to move the license from his Big Easy Casino and Hollywood Greyhound Track at Hallandale Beach to Fontainebleau, where he has long felt a casino would be a welcome addition.
However, over the past few weeks, opposition has grown among a number of influential South Florida businesspeople and officials, including hedge fund owner and billionaire Ken Griffin.
According to Griffin, permitting casinos to have a detrimental effect on prosperous communities and endanger Florida families is equivalent to purposefully poisoning the Everglades with toxic waste. According to him, casinos pose a serious threat to the state's health.
Soffer might not have been the only former president to benefit from the legislation, according to reports. His son Eric Trump has claimed that his Doral golf resort is "unmatched from a gaming perspective," implying that the strategy may have benefited his company.
The bill appears to have lost the support of legislators last week, and several state political analysts have expressed skepticism about its likelihood of passing. The Senate's Regulated Industries Committee decided not to hold a review of the matter on Monday, shortly after the scheduled meeting. Government officials in Miami Beach have not been fond of the plan.
Mayor Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, who is vehemently opposed to gaming, claims that the proposed gaming legislation presents an existential threat to the neighborhood. Officials and citizens were concerned because the proposal contained language that could potentially overturn the town's 2017 decision to outlaw gambling.
As per the reports, the Miami Beach Commission authorized the use of an airplane to transport 100 officials and residents to Tallahassee, the state capital, to voice their opposition towards the proposal. The meeting was canceled shortly after that announcement.
This may be bad news for Soffer, who has spent years trying to get gambling legalized in his Miami Beach. Having purchased the casino property in 2021, he has been actively advocating for changes to the gambling laws so that Fontainebleau can be granted a gaming license.
This has included providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican lawmakers who backed the proposal. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is also in favor of the legislation, asked lawmakers to back the bills.
If gaming is added to the Miami Beach Soffer property, the company might be more focused on tying in with the Fontainebleau after a sizable resort casino of the same name opened in Las Vegas in December.
There is still gaming at the resort in Sin City even though there aren't any at the Miami Beach location. On the other hand, a number of the casino's management staff have left in recent months.
Shane Smith, Chief Marketing Officer, and Colleen Birch, Chief Operating Officer, voluntarily resigned at the beginning of January, according to the company. That came after Senior Vice President of Casino Operations Michael Clifford left Fontainebleau in December.
When the $3.7 billion casino and hotel was unveiled on December 18, some in the gaming and casino industry may have been caught off guard by the loss of three significant members of the management team. Birch held the position of vice president of revenue optimization at The Cosmopolitan prior to being hired in November 2022. Smith began working for the company in January 2023.
The development of the North Strip property, where the two had previously worked, was plagued by issues such as numerous bankruptcies, lawsuits, ownership changes, and financing issues that resulted in years of delays.
Birch served as the project's director of revenue management in 2008, and Smith briefly worked for the Witkoff real estate development company, one of the site's prior owners before Fontainebleau Development repurchased the site and the casino plan.
Clifford began working at the casino in February and left in December. Before taking on that position in 2021, he worked as a manager for MGM Resorts, Wynn Palace in Macau, and Crockford's Gaming at Resorts World Hotel.
Furthermore, Nashville and Boston have resorts and hotels owned by Fontainebleau Development. Numerous residential properties are also included in the company's portfolio.
The Fontainebleau casino in Las Vegas features a 67-story, 3,644-room hotel, 150,000 square feet of casino space with 42-foot-high ceilings, a 90,000-square-foot theater with 3,800 seats, a 50,000-square-foot Liv nightclub, and a number of restaurants and bars.
Currently situated at the north end of the Strip are the Sahara, Resorts World, and the expanded Las Vegas Convention Center; it is expected that the resort will increase traffic in this area.
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