Concord Councilors Vote To Put Keno, Sports Betting On The Ballot

CONCORD, NH — When voters go to the polls in November, they will get to choose, once again, whether or not to allow Keno 603 in restaurants and bars in the city, to raise money for full-day kindergarten in the state of New Hampshire. The council Monday approved, by voice vote, with two noticeable dissensions, the placement of another Keno question on the ballot as well as a sports betting question.

The sports betting provision, HB 480, was approved in the Legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year. It allows up to 10 retail locations in the state to be created that will allow customers to wager on sporting events in person instead of online or by phone. There is no guarantee, if approved by voters, that Concord will get one, only that businesses could compete to have one of the 10 located in the capital city.

Keno, which has raised millions of dollars for communities to offset the cost of funding full-day K, was on the ballot two years ago and rejected by Concord voters, 1,723 to 2,249 – despite the fact that both the Concord and Merrimack Valley School districts receive "Keno-garten" funds to offset costs.

In 2017, voters in Ward 1, 2, and 8, some of the more working- and middle-class areas of the city, approved of the proposal while others, like Ward 5, one of the city's more affluent areas which rejected it by a more than two-to-one margin, voted against the proposal.

But many voters on Election Day and afterward didn't realize the Keno proposal was even on the ballot that year until after they voted. Around 700 voters "blanked" or failed to cast a vote either way for the proposal. This has led some in Concord wanting a second vote.

State law also allows the New Hampshire Lottery Commission to come back to communities that previously rejected the proposal to call for another vote, which it did earlier this year. Concord is the state's third largest city with numerous restaurants, lottery outlets, hotels, and other establishments that might want to consider offering Keno to their customers. Currently, there are more than 160 restaurants and bars that have Keno installed in their establishments.

Carl Nolin of the American Legion Concord Post 21 spoke in favor of allowing Keno on the ballot at the meeting saying that post members return funds to the community and this was another way to attract members to the post to enjoy themselves. He said charitable gaming in Seabrook raised more than $20,000 for the post's baseball program and another $70,000 for other programs. Keno, he said, would do the same for full-day K.

"We have to find ways to raise funds for programs that, if we didn't fund … those community programs would not have been able to be supported," he said. "There's only so much in the budget, right? The money we make in other ways counts."

Two restaurateurs, Andy Sanborn, a former Republican state Senator, who co-owns The Draft on South Main Street, and Todd and Wendy Roy, who recently purchased Cheers on Depot Street, also spoke in favor of the putting Keno back on the ballot.

Todd Roy said that Keno would allow patrons to play another game, like cribbage and other fun activities they offer to customers, if they chose to, while eating an appetizer or having a cocktail. He said he didn't know much about the program until he stopped by an establishment in the North Country and saw that it was offered. When he spoke to the owner of the restaurant, he said Keno saved their business, Todd Roy said.

"I'm not saying we're in that part, but if we want to turn around Concord or something … we should bring something for everybody … that's what we're trying to do," he said.

Sanborn said he had competition a few miles to the south and a few miles to the north that offered Keno to customers but he couldn't. As a sports bar and grill, he added, he had a large clientele wanting to play Keno and wondering why it was not available. Sanborn said one of the reasons he voted against the proposal in the state Senate was because it would not be implemented uniformly across the state, creating problems for business owners like was happening in Concord currently. He urged councilors to put it back on the ballot to raise more money for education and allow people to do what they wanted with their own money, without hurting themselves or others.

Ward 5 City Councilor Rob Werner, who was a later one of the noticeable No votes, questioned Sanborn about whether or not expanded gambling was, in fact, allowing people to hurt themselves and others. He pointed to the state funding an organization to assist gambling addicts in the wake of expanded gambling. Sanborn politely countered that it was true, as an example, that he had seen people struggle with alcohol issues during his many years owning a restaurant, but that there should be resources available to those people – without punishing others who were responsible. Concord Casino, a charitable gaming entity recently created that operates inside of The Draft, had seen no such issues with addicted gamblers during the months it has been open, he added.

"There is a way to have our cake and eat it, too," Sanborn said. "I think it actually works out pretty well."

After the public testimony ended, Mark Coen, an at-large city councilor, requested clarification that the council was just putting the proposal on the ballot and not endorsing Keno. Mayor Pro Tem Candace Bouchard, who was running the Keno and sports betting portion of the meeting, due to Mayor Jim Bouley being a lobbyist for Intralot, a company that has the Keno contract, confirmed Coen's comment.

The second noticeable No voice vote was Byron Champlin, an at-large city councilor. He said he was "deeply troubled by this measure" because it was already on the ballot before and rejected by the city. Champlin added that if it failed again, it would probably be brought back again … and again. He said there was a certain moral value to keeping it off the ballot and that he would be voting against it.

Ward 2 City Council Allan Herschlag reminded Champlin that the law also allowed communities to petition the public to remove Keno from a community, too, later, meaning that if there were public safety issues in the future, Concord voters could remove the game from establishments.

Other councilors said that while they didn't gamble themselves, they believed that the voters should be allowed to vote again.

Amanda Grady-Sexton, an at-large councilor, said a second vote was different than the first because Keno didn't exist at the time. Fred Keach, another at-large city councilor, called the stock market "the worst form of gambling," with families losing much more than playing Keno or the lottery. Putting questions on the ballot, he added, was the best form of direct democracy in order to get an understanding of the will of the public who participate in elections.

After approving the Keno ballot question, the sports betting provision was discussed, with Champlin again raising concerns pointing out the "extremely vague" language and worrying that anyone who was not an aficionado of sports betting wouldn't understand what they were voting for. He called for a "vigorous public discourse" so that voters in the city were fully apprised as to what they were voting for.

The proposal was then approved.

At the October city council meeting, the ballot language will be discussed and another public hearing will be held.

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