A South Korean appellate court has rejected Enford Hotel’s appeal over Cheongju city’s refusal to approve a proposed foreigner-only casino, upholding a lower court decision that dismissed the operator’s lawsuit.
The Administrative Division 1 of the Daejeon High Court’s Cheongju branch rejected the appeal on Wednesday. The court’s detailed reasoning was not immediately available, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The operator of Enford Hotel, formerly the Grand Plaza Cheongju Hotel, applied on May 22nd, 2024 to reclassify 3,188 square meters of second-floor retail space and 688 square meters on the third floor as entertainment facilities for the casino project.
Cheongju rejected the application following reviews by 18 municipal departments and three external agencies. The city found that the proposal conflicted with the site’s district-unit plan and did not meet approval criteria under the Tourism Promotion Act, Newsis reported.
The Cheongju Office of Education also opposed the project. It said the property was within a 200-meter relative education environment protection zone, while seven schools enrolling 5,319 students were located within 550 meters.
A first-instance court dismissed the operator’s case in May 2025. It found that a 2024 legal amendment adding casino businesses to restricted facilities around schools meant that a favorable ruling would provide no legal benefit to the hotel.
The operator argued on appeal that projects in relative protection zones may still request an exemption through a regional education environment protection committee and that it had been denied that opportunity.
