PA Legislators Get a Mite Testy

Lawmakers call for revoking Foxwoods license

Impatient with the stalled Foxwoods casino project, four Pennsylvania lawmakers yesterday called on state gaming regulators to revoke Foxwoods' license and award it to new investors to develop Philadelphia's second slots parlor.

At a curbside news conference beside the casino's proposed site - a vacant lot on Columbus Boulevard in Pennsport- two Democratic and two Republican legislators said time had run out for the troubled project.

"Foxwoods is deadwood," said State Rep. Michael H. O'Brien (D., Phila.).

The project's investors were licensed for a slots parlor, O'Brien said, and they should immediately begin building one. They should not be allowed to wait for the outcome of negotiations in the General Assembly over a law to permit table games at Pennsylvania casinos, he said.

On Monday, Foxwoods filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, saying it could not meet a Tuesday deadline to submit architectural and artist renderings of its planned casino.

The Foxwoods group, which is searching for funding, told regulators that potential investors would need to know the final form of the table-games law before committing funds to the project.

State Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) said no other casino applicant has had the "convenience of waiting to see what the future holds."

O'Brien and Vereb are members of the House Gaming Oversight Committee.

Democratic State Sen. Larry Farnese, whose South Philadelphia district includes the project site, said, "The time is right for the gaming board . . . to get us out of business with Foxwoods."

The gaming board's demand for architectural drawings by Dec. 1 was one of a series of deadlines imposed last August, after it granted Foxwoods a two-year extension to have 1,500 slots operational by May 2011.

Of 11 major slots licensees, the Foxwoods group is the only one not operating or under construction.

State Rep. Curt Schroder (R., Montgomery), minority chairman of the Gaming Oversight Committee, said yesterday that the Foxwoods investor group had received preferential treatment thanks to some members' connections to Gov. Rendell.

The main Foxwoods investor is a partnership representing the charitable interests of the families of Center City developer Ron Rubin; New Jersey entrepreneur Lewis Katz; and Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider. They are friends of Rendell; Katz is also a major fund-raiser for the governor.

"It doesn't take a lot to connect those dots," Schroder said.

Gary Tuma, a spokesman for Rendell, said the governor "didn't care to respond."

F. Warren Jacoby, a lawyer for Foxwoods, called the accusation "innuendo that is so unfair to people."

"We're dealing in a regulated activity and we're complying with the rules of the gaming board," Jacoby said. "It's up to the board to decide if we've shown just cause."

Jacoby added that the Foxwoods developers were not asking the board to change the 2011 deadline. Instead, they are requesting that regulators "reorder" the deadlines, with architectural drawings delivered by March 1.

In December 2006, the gaming board awarded two slots licenses for Philadelphia: Foxwoods and the SugarHouse Casino on North Delaware Avenue in Fishtown and Northern Liberties. SugarHouse is under construction and expected to open next year.