LV company agrees to $75,000 fine

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's final casino boat-in-a-moat case was closed Wednesday when Station Casino Kansas City agreed to pay a $75,000 fine for replenishing its off-river mooring basin with city tap water.

Michael W. Bradley, an assistant attorney general for Missouri, told commissioners the state was never advised by Station Casinos Inc. of Las Vegas that its riverboat basin was able to tap city water supplies to maintain proper water levels.

That charge was first leveled during last year's constitutional battle that challenged whether riverboats moored off-river were operating legally.

Voters settled that issue in November by retroactively legalizing off-river casinos. Voters also erased a requirement that riverboats' off-river moats be filled by 100 percent river water.

But Bradley said Wednesday that Station Casino still had to answer the allegation its water system had violated the old law.

The law now permits riverboat casinos to offer their games of chance in "artificial spaces that contain water and that are within 1,000 feet" of the rivers.

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