Lake County tavern owners fret about gambling talks

Lake County's non-Indian casino operators are getting anxious that new gaming compact talks between Montana and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have not yet begun.

The current five-year compact expires Nov. 30, 2006.

But the Lake County Tavern Association contends such negotiations are long and complicated and should be tackled as soon as possible.

The tribe has to make the first move, and it has not formally asked Montana to begin talks. Tribal officials could not be reached for comment.

The compact is a complicated agreement under which the state oversees nontribal gaming on and off the reservation and the tribe regulates Indian-owned operations. There are 344 state-licensed non-Indian machines in Lake County. The number of Indian-owned machines was not available.

Without a gaming compact, non-Indian machines on the reservation will have to shut down, which will drastically trim the income of taverns in Lake County, said Donnita Snyder, chairwoman of the Montana Tavern Association's gambling committee.

With the loss of that income, she estimated that the affected Lake County taverns would have to lay off at least 75 percent of their employees. Such shutdowns occurred twice in the early 1990s, with the second lasting two years.

She noted that most of the seven state-tribal compacts will be up for renegotiation in 2006. The Salish-Kootenai compact is one of the most complicated because of the huge overlap between Lake County and the Flathead Indian Reservation. That complexity could lead to talks that last several months, Snyder said.

"This really is a major problem. We need pressure on people to start negotiating," Snyder said.

The state collected $919,292 in tax revenue from gaming machines on the reservation from June 30, 2004, to June 30, 2005, and $1.043 million from all of Lake County.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com