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Tonight, we have a more on it, as the trail of the story led us to Chetumal. Daniel Ortiz found out more:..

Daniel Ortiz reporting
Today, we found movers clearing out the building that once was Golden Princess Casino.

From the outside, one gets the impression that it will open for business later, but it won't.

The decision to close it was delivered abruptly last week. Best reports to 7News are that around 130 Belizean employees were laid off. The reasons given were that business is bad, the rent is too high, and that the company is losing money to keep Golden Princess open.

Now, we've tried our very best to speak with the management at the Princess, but whenever we've made attempts, the persons in charge are never available.

What we've been able to piece together through our inquiries is that it was once profitable for Golden Princess to operate at the Freezone, and yes business has been slow. But, the bigger reason, we are told is that the Princess Group of Companies has decided to try its hand at a Casino in Chetumal.

Mexican authorities are relaxing restrictions on gambling, so it opened up an opportunity for a new Princess Casino in that Mexican border City - which would seem to work since most of the Princess's patrons were Mexicans.

Through extensive inquiries we were pointed in the direction where that new opportunity is coming together.

The new Princess casino is supposed to be placed here at the Hotel Arges Suite on the Avenida Lazaro Cardenas in Chetumal. As you can see it's still being built, and is few months away from completion. Through a little prodding of the Mexican construction workers, we learned that they are building a casino, though they don't know its name.

The decision may pay off for the company, but its seismic shift has profoundly affected 130 Belizean families. In one fell swoop, their livelihoods were pulled out from under them. The employees are now clamoring to have the company pay them their severance packages that are tied up in labour procedures. One such worker spoke to us about her sudden, unexpected termination,

Ester Herrera
"We were hearing rumors that they were about to close the casino. Different customers would come in and tell us, but the manager had a meeting and said that he wasn't going to close the casino and that was only rumors. The Thursday night I went to work normal, I had my night shift and when I reach work I saw that they had a memo saying that they will have a general meeting in the morning at the 11 at the casino. So the next day we all gathered at the casino at the meeting and that's when the manager said that they were going to close the casino."

"It was shocking to everybody. Even though they were hearing rumors they still wasn't sure and they kept saying that its wasn't true, so it was shocking to everybody. Well the same with me, I couldn't believe after so long that I was out of a job and from here we have to see how I move on because its hard but we have to face reality, we have to move on. It will affect for now because I have my kids and both of them are on their way going to college, so it will affect."

Those employees who were laid off are still waiting to be paid their severance packages.