“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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