Massachusetts: Lost Local Businesses

Officials fear casinos could kill local theaters
Music acts could be lured away
By Johanna Seltz

The South Shore Music Circus cut its season short this summer because of Tropical Storm Irene, but local officials worry that resort casinos coming to the state could inflict more lasting damage to the 60-year-old entertainment venue by sweeping away its acts.

“From the Legislature’s perspective, the whole casino bill is being proclaimed as an economic development package - and we need to ensure that it remains just that, and not an economic destruction package,’’ said Cohasset Town Manager Michael Coughlin.

The South Shore Music Circus - a theater in the round under a tent - “drives the engine of the local economy,’’ Coughlin said. “People come into Cohasset for a show, they’re filling up at the local gas station, buying things in our convenience stores and supermarkets, going to our restaurants. On more than one occasion people move here because they saw an act [at the Music Circus] and fell in love with the community.

“We truly need that to be protected from the great sucking sound that could be a large casino,’’ he said.

The fear is that smaller theaters, like the South Shore Music Circus or the Cape Cod Melody Tent, won’t be able to compete for bookings with the casinos, which can afford to pay entertainers far more because their shows don’t need to make money, said Ted Carr, chairman of the Cohasset selectmen. Instead, they’re used to draw people to the casinos for the core business of gambling, he said.

The shows are “a loss leader for them, a tool to get people in,’’ said Troy Siebels, executive director of the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts in Worcester. “The dollars are earned at the tables.

“We already are losing business to Connecticut casinos and our concern is, if there are three more [in Massachusetts], it could be the end of us.’’

The local performance centers have banded together to lobby for protections in the casino legislation before the Legislature. The goal is to limit the number of seats in casino theaters so they’re either very small or so large that places like the Music Circus couldn’t afford to bid for those acts anyway, according to Vincent Longo, chief operating officer of both the South Shore Music Circus and Cape Cod Melody Tent. Both theaters have about 2,250 seats.

“It just levels the field slightly,’’ he said. “The casinos don’t have most of the money; they have all of the money.’’

The Performing Arts Center Coalition wants to restrict casino theaters to less than 500 seats or more than 5,000. Longo said House members appeared to favor limits of less than 1,000 seats and more than 3,500. The Senate still has to weigh in on the issue.

“It’s not a perfect solution,’’ Siebels said. “There will certainly still be instances where [the casinos] take an act away, but they won’t do it 200 times a year.’’

But Larry Bonoff, former owner of Rhode Island’s Warwick Musical Theatre, worried that the protections might not be enough. His theater closed in 1999 - the land now houses a Lowes home improvement store - six years after Foxwoods Casino Resort in Connecticut opened its 1,500-seat Fox Theater with a performance by Frank Sinatra.

“My venue was 3,300 seats, and they built a venue half the size and offered twice the money,’’ Bonoff recalled. “The loyalty of the acts can only go so far. It becomes impossible to compete against.’’

The South Shore Music Theater, which employs 105 people each summer, is owned by a nonprofit organization, South Shore Playhouse Associates. But it voluntarily pays Cohasset about $32,000 in property taxes annually, according to town records.