The following is an online extra from our November 2023 issue.
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Photo illustration by Kyle Talley
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No Means No Casino has placed a billboard along Interstate 95. (Photo courtesy No Means No Casino)
With an Election Day turnabout in their sights, proponents of bringing a $562 million casino to South Richmond have turned up the heat.
The project, now named the Richmond Grand Resort and Casino, has attracted millions of dollars from advocates, particularly from casino organizers Churchill Downs and Urban ONE. Each has given just over $4 million to the campaign Richmond Wins, Vote Yes, which in turn has funneled $800,000 to Richmonders for Good Jobs, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which lists the two donations as the largest single corporate contributions in the state’s history. Casino officials have also pledged to work with the Richmond Area Building and Construction Trades Council on bringing union labor to the project.
Richmond politicians are also throwing incentives to voters, who in 2021 narrowly rejected the casino. Mayor Levar Stoney and Richmond City Council have moved forward a plan to turn the estimated $19 million in gaming tax revenue into the Child Care and Education Trust Fund to improve child care and preschool education “as soon as fall 2024,” a city statement says. It also plans to use a separate $26.5 million payment to build two care centers and make a flurry of improvements to city parks.
Opponents, including local philanthropists Robert and Barbara Ukrop and Democratic activist Paul Goldman, have thus far sent a total of just under $200,000 to the campaign No Means No Casino.
“The pro-casino advocates are using their oversized bank account to run incessant ads, pay every group and buy every vote on a long shot $8 million bet to get their referendum passed a second time,” says Farid Alan Schintzius, a strategist and organizer with No Means No Casino. “People are sick of it. We said ‘no’ the first time, and we meant it.”
Early voting ends Nov. 4; Election Day is Nov. 7.
