Kent’s one and only casino will close in March.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Great American Casino, 20500 108th Ave. S.E., in Panther Lake, is scheduled to close by mid-March. The casino’s 93 employees were notified recently about the shutdown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Essentially, it’s been unprofitable for the last couple of years,” said David Fretz, president of Great American Gaming Corp., a subsidiary of Great Canadian Gaming Corp., of Richmond, British Columbia.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The company’s locations in Tukwila, Lakewood and Everett will remain open, Fretz said. A handful of employees at the Kent location might get jobs at the other sites.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The casino offers table card games such as blackjack, baccarat and poker.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
An interior renovation of the Kent casino in June 2013 failed to attract enough more customers to make the business profitable. The closure of an Albertson’s store and a liquor store in the last two years at the same strip mall took away traffic, Fretz said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Great American opened the Kent casino in 2003. The business sat in unincorporated Kent until Panther Lake residents in 2010 voted to annex to the city of Kent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent city officials allowed the casino to operate under a grandfather clause because city code bans casinos. The Kent City Council approved a gambling tax reduction in 2013 that dropped the city’s tax rate from 11 to 7 percent on gross revenues.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It helped somewhat but it wasn’t sufficient,” said Fretz, who lobbied the council for the tax reduction after the casino had net operating losses of $649,177 in 2011 and $533,038 in 2012.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The casino paid about $300,000 in gambling taxes to the city in 2013 and about $200,000 in 2014, Fretz said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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