Surfrider Foundation - Sebastian Inlet Chapter

Port, ships OK sewage pact Gambling vessels will discharge their wastewater farther offshore

by Scott Blake

FLORIDA TODAY WEB EXTRAS
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PORT CANAVERAL -- Under an agreement with the Canaveral Port Authority, Port Canaveral's two gambling ships will discharge sewage eight miles offshore, instead of four miles out, to address concerns the vessels may be polluting the local surf.

The Port Authority's five commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the agreement.

Ralph Haben, a lawyer representing Sterling Casino Lines and SunCruz Casinos, said the two companies will discharge their sewage, called "black water," farther out to sea to be "good corporate citizens" and to please the Port Authority. He said Sterling and SunCruz are not doing it because there is evidence their ships are responsible for polluting the surf.

Haben said both gambling ships treat their "black water" in holding tanks before releasing it into the Atlantic Ocean. He said discharging it twice as far out to sea should reduce any chances that some of it could wash ashore.

"We're not doing it as a result of any test being made," Haben said. "We're not responding to an environmental problem. But we understand that perception becomes reality."

In 2000, Sterling reported its ship produces 2,800 gallons a day of "black water," which typically comes from toilets, and 4,200 gallons a day of "gray water," which typically comes from sinks, said Jeannie Adame, the Port Authority's director of environmental plans and programs.

Last year, SunCruz reported its ship produces 1,000 gallons a day of "black water" and 3,400 gallons a day of "gray water," Adame said.

The two casino ships draw roughly 1 million passengers a year, operating two offshore gambling excursions a day, each lasting five to six hours.

Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Stan Payne said he worked on the agreement with Sterling and SunCruz because "some people believed they were breaking the law" by discharging within four miles offshore.

Payne said the gambling ships have complied with wastewater-discharge laws, but he wanted to double the discharge distance to eight miles to address "the public perception" that the gambling ships were polluting local waters.

"The NOAA study said (the ships) were in compliance with the law and the quantities (of sewage) generated was insignificant," Payne said. He was referring to a report released in January by researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Among the report's findings:

Water tests were insufficient to support claims that "nutrient" levels in the local surf were elevated from sewage.

The nitrogen in seaweed and water tests were not enough to determine whether there was a significant sewage pollution problem in Brevard. Nitrogen indicates the presence of sewage.

The study also found the port's two gambling vessels discharge 26,600 gallons of "black water" offshore in a week.

Brevard County and the Port Authority split the cost of the $100,000 study. Officials wanted to know whether deep injection wells, septic tanks, canals and cruise ships have been generating unhealthy levels of sewage in the local surf.

Such question arose after the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce did a series of local water-quality tests in 2003. The tests revealed what scientists said were unmistakable signs of human waste in the surf.

Contact Blake at 242-3644 or sblake@flatoday.net

Wanna buy a boat?

Orlando Business Journal
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The retail real estate Web site FSBO.com recently posted a listing marketing the Sterling Cruise Lines 1,800-passenger Ambassador II, reportedly the world's largest casino cruise ship with four casinos and five bars.

According to the posting, the ship can be had for a mere $120 million.

Problem is that owner John Brevick and his silent partner, reputedly a well-known Washington political figure, don't want to sell.

Brevick believes the listing was concocted by an aggressive commercial real estate broker attempting to convince him to sell. "We get calls all the time from people wanting to list us. They say, 'Everything is for sale at the right price.' From now on, I'm just hanging up on them."

As for the Web site, owner Tony Haffner would not identify the person who placed the listing. The ad has since been pulled ...

Take your dice, go home

Orlando Business Journal
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Alan Byrd Staff Writer

PONCE INLET -- It's 1 a.m. and A1A is lit up like the road leading to Kevin Costner's field of dreams. Streams of cars zoom past the houses and police cars lining Ponce Inlet's main thoroughfare.

Inside the cars, weary gamblers tote up the results of a six-hour gaming cruise aboard the SunCruz Casino.

The hundreds of cars leaving the ship suggest SunCruz is the biggest winner of all. But the company that owns the casino cruise, Dania-based Tropic Casino Cruise, is struggling to just stay afloat in this quiet seaside town: Cruise officials say the city of Ponce Inlet is attempting to torpedo the popular casino cruise.

"The town has begun an orchestrated campaign to drive the boat out of town," says C. Allen Watts of Daytona Beach, attorney for SunCruz Casino.

And SunCruz is fighting back. The company recently sued Ponce Inlet, claiming that a list of violations the city has issued against the company are unconstitutional.

Caught in the cross fire are Volusia residents such as Chaz Folcik, a Daytona resident who cruises about twice a month with his wife. "I like this," says Folcik from the nearly full Caribbean stud poker table where he was stacking $5 and $25 poker chips.

Folcik has plenty of company. At 7 p.m. on a recent Friday night, lines at SunCruz's ticket widows are three deep. On the 150-foot, three-story ship that towers over the nearby fishing boats and restaurants, gamblers of all shapes and sizes drink rum punch and eye the games.

Senior citizens sit with buckets of quarters by slot machines. College students pick spots at blackjack tables. Young men line up around the craps table. Middle-aged couples cluster around the Caribbean poker tables.

At 9 p.m., the gaming is going strong on SunCruz Casino. The 20 or so men around the craps table hoot and holler each time the dice are rolled their way.

A man chain-smokes his Camels as the dealer throws him blackjack and he wins $100. The cling and beeps of winning slot machines echo throughout the ships halls.

But back on shore, the cruise is much less popular.

When the town held a vote in 1997 asking citizens if they wanted the ship to remain docked at Ponce Inlet, 60 percent of the voters turned thumbs down on the cruises.

Ironically, when it first docked in Ponce Inlet last summer, town officials embraced the added business.

"The record reflects we are willing to work with businesses," explains Ponce Inlet's attorney, Robert J. Riggio. But, he adds, the original gaming ship has been replaced by a steady stream of increasingly larger boats.

Today, he says, "This boat dwarfs everything out there. It seems out of place."

But what has antagonized the town most, according to Riggio, is the steady stream of traffic regularly clogging the streets of the quiet west Volusia town -- including busloads of senior citizens headed for a rendezvous with fortune.

So the city has cracked down. Among the enforcement actions:

Arresting a man who was transporting slot machines from one of SunCruz's locations to Ponce Inlet.

Citing the company because its dock is not permitted by the United States or Florida and does not have a development permit.

Citing the company for unpermitted altering of wetlands and wetland buffers.

Citing the company for not having a 10-foot setback for its dock.

Heavily policing traffic coming to and leaving the ship -- a move that has led to a boomlet in traffic tickets.

"We're not targeting just them," says Todd Hendrickson, Ponce Inlet chief of police. "This is a continual party, and we're there just to make sure they're not unruly."

However, SunCruz officials say they're being unfairly targeted. Says Stan Driscoll, general manager of the SunCruz Casino in Ponce Inlet.

"I'm sure it's just a coincidence that a police car sits outside our parking lot for the 20 minutes before we set sail and three when we leave."

And the lawsuit cites other examples. For instance, although the city has cited the ship owners for problems with the dock, the cruise line doesn't own the dock. They share leased dock space with other companies, none of which have been slapped with similar citations.

"There are a number of trumped-up charges being filed by the town," says Watts. "We've tried to be cooperative and work with the town, but we're not going to be anymore."

Riggio says that comes as no surprise: "We had attempted to find a way to come up with a solution," he says. "Then we started to receive phone calls that they would win in any court in the land.

"I considered the threats to be real," Riggio says. "There's a lot of money at stake here."

By midnight, the gaming patrons most likely to be affected by the legal war are sleeping in the aisles between slot machines. On the deck, a duet plays Patsy Cline tunes such as Crazy and Sweet Dreams to a handful of disheartened gamblers.

But the ship announcement that gambling for the night is about to close prompts Folcik to put one last dollar into a slot machine, pull the handle and watch the wheels turn.

When it stops, the line crosses three sevens, and the tokens pour out.

He wins $270.

© 1998 American City Business Journals Inc.

Cape Canaveral is home to two gambling cruise ships: Sterling Casino Line's Ambassador II and Sun Cruz Casino's Sun Cruz XII.

The 440-foot Ambassador attracted 1.5-million passengers in fiscal year 2003, up slightly from 2002 with 1.4-million.

The Sun Cruz XII, which is 308 feet, had 429,018 visitors in fiscal year 2003. There were 407,452 passengers in 2002.

But this doesn't necessarily translate into a financial windfall for the host city, said Andrea Bowers, Cape Canaveral's city treasurer.

Unlike St. Petersburg, Cape Canaveral has a port authority, so the money generated by the cruise ships goes to the authority, not the local government, Bowers said.

Also, having a local port brings an increase in traffic and crime for the surrounding localities.

"Any time you're next to a port, you're going to have off-setting problems that come from that," Bowers said. "That's just a part of it."

The cruise ships may have contributed to an increase in local property values, Bowers added. But there's no way to tell for certain whether there is a link.

"Waterfront property is at a premium anyway," Bowers said. "There's not much of it left."

Passengers Treated For Minor Injuries
After Gambling Ship Catches Fire Fire Erupts Half Hour Into Voyage
May 16, 2004 UPDATED: May 17, 2004
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- About a dozen people suffered minor injuries after fire broke out aboard a gambling cruise ship carrying about 160 people on Sunday, officials said.

Rescue workers examined the passengers as a precaution after the ship docked, but all were released, said Lt. David Erdman of the Broward County fire department. Some passengers were treated for minor smoke inhalation, Coast Guard Petty Officer Anastasia Burns said.

The fire on the SunCruz Casino cruise ship was reported about half an hour after the vessel left at noon for a five-hour sail from Dania Beach, Burns said. The ship was three miles south of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale when the fire broke out.

The ship -- the SunCruz V, a 160-foot vessel that can hold 560 people -- was towed to Port Everglades about two hours later with everyone still on board, officials said. All passengers were off the ship by about 3 p.m., Burns said.

Broward firefighters who reached the ship while it was still at sea sealed the engine room's airtight doors to contain the blaze, Erdman said. When they opened the doors while the ship was in port, the fire was out, he said.

The cause of the fire was unknown, but an investigation was planned, Burns said.

People on board were sent to the outdoor top deck and were given life vests after the fire started.

One passenger, Betty Davis of Fort Lauderdale, said patrons were told that a generator caught fire, sparking the blaze.

"The whole boat filled with smoke," Davis said. "And without the motor going, the boat was really rocking around."

Leslie Ford, a ticket sales representative for SunCruz, had no other details of the incident. The ship's evening sail was canceled, Ford said.

The cruise line's ships feature slot machines and table games.

SunCruz Sale Completed
The $36.5 million sale of SunCruz Casinos' assets has been completed.
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Pompano Beach-based Oceans Casino Cruises and Vessels Casino Cruises on Friday closed on the purchase of the assets of the Dania Beach-based floating gambling enterprise. The assets were sold as part of an auction overseen by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. SunCruz filed for bankruptcy in June 2001

Members of the purchasing group include Spiros Naos, the nephew of SunCruz founder Gus Boulis, who was murdered three years ago. SunCruz employs about 1,000 workers.

SunCruz operates six cruise ships offering half-day gambling trips off Florida's and South Carolina's coast.

Gambling Cruise Ship Detained Over Major Rule Violations
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July 16, 2004

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- The Coast Guard has detained a popular gambling cruise ship for breaking some major rules and, inspectors say, putting passengers' lives at risk.

The Coast Guard says they found a list of problems with a Sterling Casino Lines cruise ship. One of the biggest problems is the ship was actually tilting in the water.

One after another, gamblers were turned away at the parking lot, learning at the last minute their so called 'excursion to nowhere' really wasn't going anywhere. The coast guard detained the ship after a weeklong investigation into safety hazards aboard the Ambassador II.

Coast Guard investigators say they couldn't guarantee the safety of passengers after discovering all sorts of issues, including overloading the ship, fire hazards, insufficient safety training for the crew and problems with the hull of the ship.

Coast Guard officers say they didn't want to ruin anyone's chances at winning the jackpot, but they weren't going to gamble with passenger safety.

Sterling Casino Lines wouldn't comment at all. The Coast Guard says they are cooperating, but investigators say the ship will have to stay tied up at the dock until all the issues have been fixed.

SunCruz Agrees To Pay Fee To County
Per-passenger deal irks gaming foes, competitor
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By David Klepper - The Sun News

Little River's two casino boats would pay as much as $700,000 to Horry County in a deal designed to end the friction between officials and the gambling operations.

SunCruz Casinos has agreed to pay $2 per passenger for the first year and $3 in future years. Councilman Harold Worley, who represents Little River, said he's working to persuade Southern Elegance, which operates another boat from the Little River waterfront. The deal must be approved by County Council.

Little River residents who oppose the boats say the deal won't solve their problems and will ensure the boats stay despite their moral concerns about gambling and their fears of related crime. They also fear the fee will go uncollected unless a county police officer constantly monitors the boats' operations.

"How could you possibly enforce this?" asked resident Baxter Ragsdale, who wants officials to entirely ban the boats from Horry County. "This doesn't seem like a solution to me."

Worley said fee revenue will pay for the impact of casino boat passengers on county roads and services such as police, fire and ambulances. He said the thousands of casino boat passengers put an added burden on Little River and county authorities, and it's only right the boats should pay.

Worley said he expects the fee to be in place in about three months. The extra $2 or $3 likely will be passed along to passengers, Worley said. He estimated that if both gambling operations agree to pay, the fee could raise about $700,000 a year.

In return, the county would allow SunCruz and Southern Elegance to substitute larger boats for their standard vessels, as long as the number of passengers is not increased. Also, Worley said, he will no longer threaten to shut down the boats.

The county already bans new casino boats.

Last week, SunCruz brought in a larger replacement boat to serve while its standard vessel is in drydock. At the time, Worley said the replacement boat violated the spirit of the county's ban, and he threatened to call for a permanent ban on all gambling boats.

Worley said the deal with SunCruz probably is the best solution the county can find. He said it would likely be impossible to totally ban the boats.

"The federal government allows casino boats to operate. We can pass an ordinance [banning boats], but that doesn't mean a judge will let it stand," Worley said. "This way, they're paying for the impact they have on Little River and Horry County."

Steve Rinaldi of SunCruz said his company agreed to pay the fee because it "wants to be a good corporate citizen.

"We're a good addition to the entertainment options available in Myrtle Beach," Rinaldi said. "If we can be in better standings with the county by participating [in the fee program], that's a win-win situation. We're not a bunch of bad guys."

But Southern Elegance's marketing director, Joe Telesco, said he is upset because SunCruz and Worley worked out the deal before bringing it to Southern Elegance. He said the county is allowing SunCruz to keep a larger boat at Little River in exchange for a payoff.

"It's graft at it's finest," Telesco said. "It's bribery or extortion or something."

Telesco said Southern Elegance would likely agree to pay a fee, as long as SunCruz's larger boat is banned.

"We're not opposed to paying a fee," he said. "So long as we're all treated the same. [The SunCruz replacement boat] violates the law. But Horry County seems to change its rules whenever they want."

Contact DAVID KLEPPER at dklepper@thesunnews.com or 626-0303.

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Crew leaps from burning casino shuttle
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Three rescued from burning casino shuttle boat
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By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
Published October 18, 2004

PORT RICHEY - Minutes away from loading dozens of Sunday morning gamblers, a SunCruz Casinos shuttle was destroyed by fire at the mouth of Pithlachascotee River in Pasco County.

The only people on board were three crew members, who jumped from the burning shuttle to another boat and escaped serious injury. Neither the casino company nor Pasco County firefighters would speculate Sunday on what caused the fire.

But at least one passenger recalled that the same boat's engines malfunctioned a week ago, delaying a run to an offshore casino. Fire officials said Sunday it was fortunate that no passengers were onboard when it caught fire.

"It could have been a catastrophe," Pasco fire battalion chief Greg Gude said after the U.S. Coast Guard secured the drifting, blackened hulk about noon Sunday.

Boater Frank Nichols felt the wake of the passing 75-foot Express Shuttle II and noticed smoke pouring from its cabin door. He and another boater, off-duty Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Morgan, helped the captain and his crew to Morgan's boat.

"I believe the fire was in the engine room. The cabin wasn't on fire but it was completely engulfed in smoke," Nichols said. "The captain didn't want to get off, but he did when the Coast Guard told him the starboard was all in flames."

The shuttle moves between the docks on the Pithlachascotee to the SunCruz floating casino 9 to 12 miles off shore in the Gulf of Mexico. It had just dropped off a load of passengers to the casino ship and was returning up the river channel for more.

As black smoke billowed from the double-decker vessel built for 140 passengers, the passengers on the casino ship said they struggled to get information.

The popular and profitable SunCruz operation - its motto is "The Fastest Way to Play" - attracts hundreds to its slot machines and gaming tables on busy weekends.

Wayne Bergeron departed on Express Shuttle II at 9:30 a.m. and docked at the casino about 10 a.m. Fifteen minutes later the gamblers saw smoke rising from the river.

Dealers in the casino assured the customers the fire was on land, not aboard the boat they just left, Bergeron said.

"They would not tell us anything. There's a gag order," said Bergeron, a regular customer from Plant City.

Company spokeswoman Beth Henson said talk of engine failure was premature.

"We'll sort though the details and (Monday) we'll know exactly what happened," Henson said.

Dozens of people, including a number of senior citizens, had been waiting to board the shuttle at 11 a.m. Henson said passengers should not fear for their safety. SunCruz runs shuttles to and from the offshore casino seven times a day.

"We have an emergency evacuation plan and all safety measures in effect and we are trained well, just like an airline crew," Henson said.

Several passengers, both those arriving onshore and waiting to leave Sunday afternoon, said the fire was nothing special.

The shuttles hold plenty of lifeboats and flotation devices, passengers said, although it's unclear if the speed of the fire would have left time to equip everyone.

"I've been doing this for years, and it's not a problem," said Lynn Alamo, frustrated to learn the gambling cruise was full when trying to board at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

SunCruz has faced boating mishaps in the past. A couple of years ago, the state Department of Environmental Protection banned the larger casino ships from plying the Pithlachascotee.

The propellers damaged the river bottom, the state said, so the lighter shuttles started taxiing gamblers out to sea.

In April, a captain had a heart attack and had to be rescued by passengers as the shuttle drifted off course.

The boats also occasionally get mired on sandbars near the river's mouth. Sue Duncan's house in the upscale Harbor Pointe subdivision looks onto the gulf, where the boat caught fire.

The low tide on Sunday left the tidal flats a haunt of clicking crabs and exposed sea grass.

"They've gotten stuck a couple of time off here," Duncan said as she photographed the burning shuttle after it came to rest on a sandbar. "But they usually get off successfully."

To put out the flames, Pasco and Port Richey firefighters dragged hoses across the tidal muck. They hoisted the hose to a waiting Sheriff's Office patrol boat. They puttered around the stricken boat, spraying the hot spots.

Bergeron and other passengers who had taken the shuttle that morning were amazed to see it reduced to a black floating wreckage when they returned about 3 p.m.

"Luckily it was the first boat of the morning," Bergeron said. "Otherwise there would have been people on board returning from gambling. Who knows what would have happened?"