LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — On Wednesday, an amendment requiring casinos to get local approval before building cruising by with 116,000 approved signatures. If passed by voters, this could mean no dice for a Pope County casino.
This ballot approval comes just weeks after a casino company finally won a years-long battle for the license to start building in Pope County.
This is a debate that dates back to 2018. Now, the voters will decide if a casino is in the cards.
Hans Stiritz works with Local Voters in Charge, which is behind the ballot initiative to require casinos to get local approval before landing anywhere in Arkansas.
"Local voters should have the choice to determine what happens in our own community, and that's what this is about," Siritz said. "That it boils down to is the fact... some communities want to embrace the casino and the possibilities of those hold. Other communities may have questions or reservations about a casino being present in their community, and I may decide that it's not a good fit."
And it isn't the first time they've tried to reverse the amendment that allowed full-blown casinos back in 2018.
After falling short in the past, they've now cruised onto the ballot with 20,000 signatures more than the requirement.
But it comes at an interesting time, just weeks after Cherokee Nation won a years-long battle for that final license to build in Pope County.
Natalie Ghidotti, with the group Investing in Arkansas, supports Cherokee Nation and said things should continue as planned.
"People in Russellville and Polk County are wanting this," Ghidotti said. "They have been asking, 'Like, wait, this isn't going to stop the project. Is it? Is this going to delay the project?'"
Investing in Arkansas is now campaigning against the amendment.
"We're talking about millions upon millions of dollars that would be tax revenue to the state, to Pope County [and] to Russellville," Ghidotti said. "I mean, that project that will be 1000s of jobs. I mean, definitely 1000s of jobs."
Even as the amendment heads to the November ballot, both sides expect legal hurdles ahead.
"We certainly expect legal challenges," Siritz said. "I think that's pretty much standard operating procedure for any amendment that comes to the ballot these days, but I think we have confidence in our team and the work they did."
One reason this petition drive succeeded when past efforts didn't is that it was their highest-funded effort. They spent about $5 million on canvassing, a lot of it coming from the Choctaw Nation, which operates a competing casino 90 minutes up Interstate 40 just across the border in Oklahoma.