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UK
Casino Times
> Casino
News
28 March 2006
Hotel's Casino Bid
Rejected
A
Birmingham hotel's bid to convert most of its ground floor
into a casino was today branded a loser.
Thistle Hotels chiefs want
to introduce the money-spinning wheeze in four London
properties and a network of 12 provincial hotels, including
its branch on the corner of Hagley Road and Portland Road in
Edgbaston.
But the tables have been
turned in Birmingham by planners who threw out the bid after
accusing the chain of trying to change its city hotel into a
"casino with bedrooms".
Around 100 staff were to
have been hired to operate the self-contained casino between
noon and 6am every day.
Coun Peter Douglas Osborn
told his colleagues: "The wage bill is around £2.5
million a year and to cover that a lot of people will have
to lose an awful lot of money. The number of people passing
through this casino would have to be of industrial
proportions."
Coun John Clancy said the
hotel chain was trying to "come in through the back door" to
take advantage of the relaxation of gaming
regulations.
A senior QC advised
councillors they must consider the view of an ordinary
person walking into a hotel with 60 per cent of its ground
floor taken up by a self-contained casino.
"Would he come to the
conclusion he had entered a hotel with a casino or a casino
with bedrooms," he said. "He might consider the answer to be
clear if he saw from a name plate that the casino was called
The Birmingham Gaming Club Ltd."
A Thistle Hotels
representative said the casino was part of the normal
facilities offered to hotel guests such as a health
club.
He said that his precedent
had been set by the Ritz in Piccadilly which had a casino
operation.
Related pages:
NEC
Bid Leads Birmingham Super Casino Race
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