Mississippi Developer Sues Long Beach Mayor Over Casino Land Dispute

^{Jim Parrish, the owner of Parrish's Restaurant & Lounge, alleges that Long Beach officials are trying to void his restaurant's lease to pursue a casino plan on beachfront land. (Photo: Jason Lykins / Facebook )}

Mississippi businessman Jim Parrish has filed a lawsuit in Chancery Court claiming that Long Beach Mayor Tim Pierce is trying to invalidate his lease to build a casino on his land after his own efforts to do so were thwarted. 

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Long Beach Harbor Resort LLC, identifies the defendants as Mayor Pierce, members of the Board of Aldermen, and the city of Long Beach, Mississippi. 

Dispute Centers on Whether Lease Runs to 2030

Currently, Parrish’s company operates Parrish’s Restaurant & Lounge across the street from a vacant beachfront property on Beach Boulevard. The plot once held a Kmart and a grocery store, but both were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Parrish's company, Harbor Resort, first began efforts to purchase the additional property in 2018, with the potential to build a casino there. The previous leaseholder of the land Parrish’s Restaurant now occupies says that they also had an option on the additional waterfront property, though they never acquired it.

The company wants Chancery Court Judge Carter Bise to enforce and validate its 2010 lease between Long Beach Harbor Resort and the city. At the heart of the case is the question of how long the lease remains in effect. While the company contends that the lease doesn’t expire until February 2030, with additional renewal options, the lawsuit alleges that Pierce and city officials are treating it as a month-to-month lease that can be terminated at any time.

The details matter, as the lease would give Parrish and his company the potential to build on the vacant property across the way. The state legislature later passed laws allowing casinos, previously permitted only on the water, to be developed on waterfront property as well.

For a time, it appeared that the company and the city were on the same page, but Harbor Resort failed to close a deal to purchase the land by a March 2025 deadline. According to the lawsuit, Pierce and city officials have since worked with a Florida real estate developer and five unnamed individuals – referred to as John Does 1-5 in the lawsuit – on alternate casino plans.

Casino Expansion Often Brings Legal Fights

Those plans alone may not have triggered legal action. But the lawsuit contends that the casino plan also includes using the land currently leased by Harbor Resort, potentially driving the restaurant out of business.

While Mississippi casinos continue to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly revenue, expansion efforts have sometimes run into legal challenges and drawn out court battles. 

In Biloxi, developers had to wait nearly two decades before finally winning a legal battle to gain site approval to build a casino on the former site of the Tivoli Hotel, a plan they first unveiled in 2007, while tidelands issues have kept another potential casino in the city in legal limbo. Last year, an attempt to pass legislation that would have allowed for casinos to be developed in Jackson fell short in the state legislature, though proponents say they plan to revisit the issue in 2026.