PROVIDENCE — The renewed State House drive to bring full-scale casino gambling to Rhode Island brought the Rev. Eugene McKenna back to Smith Hill on Wednesday night with this query: “How many times will we be asked the same question?”

In 2006, voters rejected a proposed Harrah’s-financed Narragansett Indian casino in West Warwick on a vote of 241,986 (63.05 percent) to 141,806 (36.95 percent). This time, the push for a public referendum is focused on turning the state’s existing slots parlors in Lincoln and Newport into bona fide casinos.

“Hardly a day goes by without our reading … about crimes committed by addicted gamblers: robbery, embezzlement, a recent alleged murder and sadly even a suicide … And who among us doesn’t know about divorces, bankruptcies,” said Father McKenna, a Catholic priest, in a now familiar speech warning that “a full-fledged casino will only increase the state’s addiction to gambling revenue.”

But his was one of the few voices for or against the call by Sen. John Tassoni, D-Smithfield, for a public referendum to allow the full array of traditional casino play at Twin River and Newport Grand.

The hearing by the Senate Committee on Constitutional & Regulatory Issues took several unexpected turns. The first was when Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence, attached a last-minute amendment aimed at keeping dog racing alive at Twin River to his own largely uncontroversial bill to allow overnight gambling to continue at Twin River when a one-year trial period ends June 30.

The sprawling greyhound track is home to 12 greyhound kennels, an estimated 1,200 dogs and 4,752 videoslots. In recent days, Twin River’s owners announced their plans to suspend the live greyhound races on Aug. 8, after meeting the minimum 125 race dates set by state law. Ciccone’s bill would require at least 200 racing days annually.

There was no immediate response from Twin River’s owners, who said they “took this necessary yet unfortunate step to preserve revenue in the event of a Chapter 11 filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.” They pay the kennel owners a reported $9-million-to-$10-million annual subsidy, even though their net from the $13,246,233 wagered on dog racing in 2008 was only $1.7 million. State taxes from the live races were just shy of $1 million.

Ciccone, who doubles as a top official in the Laborers’ International Union in Rhode Island, said he introduced the proposal on his own, without prompting, out of concern for the lost revenue, jobs and tradition of greyhound racing. With horse racing long gone from Rhode Island, he said, “I just hate to see every tradition that the state had, we are dumping.”

Jennifer Bramley, the new spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Greyhound Owners Association, said the dog owners view his proposal as critical to saving 225 jobs and $7.5 million in direct and indirect fees and taxes.

The estimated $7.5-million state revenue loss is based in large part, however, on the greyhound owners’ contention that video-slot revenues would drop by more than $5.5 million annually if gamblers were not drawn to the former Lincoln Park to see the dog races. Twin River disputes the numbers.

As the local organizer for a union that represents restaurant and casino workers, Francis Engler said UNITE Here Local 217 would support the move to full-scale casino gambling if it brought “good, middle-class jobs.” But he said Twin River has been increasingly relying on food service operators who have replaced those kinds of jobs with “poverty-level” jobs, where workers are either forced to work 50-to-60-hour weeks without overtime or are given scaled-back hours “to make sure they don’t qualify for benefits.” Twin River had no immediate comment.

No votes were taken on any of the gambling-related proposals considered at the hearing, though Sen. Maryellen Goodwin, D-Providence, once again voiced her misgivings on a proposal to ban smoking at Twin River and Newport Grand. The lobbyist for the Rhode Island State Nurses Association, Sylvia Weber, said her own perusal of the Internet turned up item after item suggesting business went up — not down — at casinos in other states where smoking was banned because “more people came.” Business aside, she said, state lawmakers should do what they can mitigate 1,900 tobacco-related illnesses in Rhode Island each year.

But Goodwin said the lawmakers need to rely on the best information they can get, and at this point the state Budget Office — citing the experience at “racinos’ in Delaware after a smoking ban went into effect — has projected a smoking ban would result in revenue loses of at least $36 million annually.

kgregg@projo.com