Stardancer Casino, Inc. v. Stewart

346 S.C. 377, 556 S.E.2d 357 (2001)

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Stardancer Casino, Inc. v. Stewart

South Carolina Supreme Court
346 S.C. 377, 556 S.E.2d 357 (2001)

Facts

Stardancer Casino, Inc. (Stardancer) (plaintiff) ran “day cruises to nowhere” on a ship that was equipped with gambling devices, including slot machines, gaming tables, and video-poker machines. Stardancer’s cruises began and ended at ports in South Carolina, with no other stops. Once the ship was beyond South Carolina’s territorial waters, gambling was permitted. Before the ship reentered South Carolina’s territorial waters, the gambling equipment was secured and made unavailable. Under federal law, day cruises like Stardancer’s were subject to criminal prosecution if the cruises began and ended in a state that had statutorily prohibited such cruise-to-nowhere activity. Stardancer filed a declaratory-judgment action in South Carolina state court against South Carolina Law-Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart and other South Carolina officials (collectively, the officials) (defendants), seeking a determination of whether Stardancer’s activities violated any existing South Carolina criminal statutes. The nine potentially relevant statutes were: (1) three lottery statutes; (2) one bookmaking statute; (3) South Carolina Code §§ 12-21-2712 and 16-19-120, which provided for the seizure and destruction of unlawful gambling devices; (4) South Carolina Code § 16-19-40, which criminalized playing certain games in a specific list of locations that did not include ships and also criminalized keeping a gaming location; (5) South Carolina Code § 16-19-50, which criminalized setting up, keeping, or using games for gambling purposes; and (6) South Carolina Code § 12-21-2710, which criminalized possessing gambling devices on a premises. The legislative history of §§ 16-19-50 and 12-21-2710 indicated that the South Carolina General Assembly had not intended the statutes to outlaw day cruises, and the general assembly had also rejected legislation that would have explicitly criminalized day cruises. Additionally, the South Carolina Department of Revenue had promulgated regulations that specifically excluded moving property such as boats from the definition of “premises” for purposes of § 12-21-2710. The trial court found that Stardancer’s actions did not violate any statutes, and the officials appealed. On appeal, the officials conceded that the lottery statutes and bookmaking statute were inapplicable to Stardancer’s actions but continued to challenge the trial court’s decisions on the remaining statutes.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Pleicones, J.)

Dissent (Burnett, J.)

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