What started out as a routine maritime transaction in the Panhandle has turned into a potential legal typhoon that could, in a worst-case scenario, inflict heavy damage on Florida’s lucrative cruise ship industry.
The potential problem developed after Gov. Bob Martinez and the Cabinet approved a marina lease in Panama City. When they discovered that the marina would be used by the Southern Elegance, a vessel featuring one-day gambling trips, they rescinded the approval.
Martinez instructed the Department of Natural Resources to research the feasibility and possible side effects of a ban that would deny cruise ships with casinos the right to operate out of docks located on state-owned land.
Theoretically, such a ban would affect only the proposed Panama City ship and one other operating out of Key West. Because docks in such South Florida ports as Miami, Port Everglades and Palm Beach are situated on port authority land, the major portion of the state’s cruise ship business would not be affected.
Agriculture Commissioner Doyle Conner and Secretary of State Jim Smith have suggested, however, that it might be illegal to single out one-day cruises.
According to a spokesman for Attorney General Bob Butterworth, whose office also is researching the situation, a creative attorney working on behalf of a client denied docking privileges might be able to give the state costly courtroom headaches. As unlikely as that might be, the state should proceed cautiously.
The News-Sun/Sentinel has consistently and vigorously opposed land-based casino gambling in Florida. Reasons for that opposition include the fact that hotel casinos attract racketeers, produce huge profits that can be funneled into organized crime coffers, breed prostitution and street crime, and contribute to contrasting pockets of glittering opulence and stark poverty.
Cruise ships produce none of those problems. Their casinos operate only when the vessel is beyond the three-mile limit, they are in port only long enough to load and unload passengers and those passengers seldom hit each other in the head to get a gambling stake.
If the governor is assured that he can keep gambling ships away from state- owned land without disrupting a clean industry that brings tens of thousands of visitors to Florida every year, more power to him. If his advisers cannot provide that assurance, he should back off.
