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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Boat casinos still afloat

Web posted January 15, 2000

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Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

Video poker is in its death throes, but South Carolina's other gambling menace, casino boat gambling, is still very much alive off the Palmetto State's coastline, particularly in Charleston -- at least for the moment.

But just as the state Supreme Court delivered the fatal blow to video poker parlors, the U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a potentially fatal blow to casino boat owners.

On Monday the High Court let stand a lower court ruling that the state may ban so-called ``cruises to nowhere,'' whereby boat operators travel beyond the three-mile territorial limit before letting the gamblers do their thing.

The confusing coastline gambling issue came about as a consequence of Congress lifting a ban on gambling aboard American ships in 1992. Federal District Judge David C. Norton ruled in 1998 that the state's anti-gambling laws conflicted with, and had to yield to, the 1992 federal law.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled Norton was wrong. The state did have the right to prohibit gambling off its coast. That's the ruling U.S. Supreme Court let stand.

As far as state Attorney General Charlie Condon is concerned, that should be the end of it. Boat operators ``ought now to realize they have no legal leg to stand on,'' he said.

It may not be quite that simple. Muddying the waters is a ruling in a separate case made last year by state Circuit Judge A. Victor Rawl. He held that South Carolina has no gambling laws that apply to ``cruises to nowhere.''

Hence, boat operators say they'll continue in business unless or until the Legislature or the state Supreme Court tells them to stop.

Gambling foe Condon needs to work both sides of the fence: Urge lawmakers to ban the cruises, but also try to sink the boat operators in court.