Harrah's requests tax break

The company's New Orleans Casino will close without the state's help, officials say

Tuesday, November 14, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS -- Harrah's New Orleans Casino is doomed without reducing its state taxes 50 percent and adding a hotel and unlimited restaurants so it can compete with Mississippi resorts, a city-state study panel was told Monday.

The casino simply has not met -- and cannot be expected to meet -- once-lofty projections of how much money it would take in from gamblers, the panel was told during the casino's first official public statement of what it wants to stay open.

The casino's ownership company, JCC Holding Co., says the casino likely will shut its doors March 31 without tax relief, costing 3,000 jobs. The company wants the minimum tax lowered to $50 million during the first year of a new deal, followed by $55 million the second year and $60 million thereafter. In addition, the committee was told, JCC Holding will meet its debt holders in a "friendly bankruptcy" proceeding that will result in a top-to-bottom reorganization of the company.

Read this entire story in The Las Vegas Review-Journal.