Massachusetts: Rushin' roulette

Rushin' roulette

It’s hard to know what the right metaphor is to capture all the absurd gyrations and policymaking-on-the-run that have characterized the mad dash to casinos and slots. Sometimes it seems a balloon is the right image, with every effort to squeeze some sense into this thing merely causing another area of the casino balloon to bulge toward the breaking point. Or maybe it’s the sweater metaphor, where each tug at a knot in the knitting only unravels things a little more.

First was earmarking a cut of the house’s take to programs that try to stop compulsive gamblers from betting away the keys to the family car. (With compulsive gamblers responsible for as much as third of all casino revenues, it would present a problem for all the revenue and jobs projections if these programs were wildly effective, but that’s probably not a worry.) Then came the effort to protect existing concert venues, theaters, and other cultural institutions that are likely to take a hit when Donnie and Marie roll in for a week on a casino hall stage.

Now on tap are questions surrounding what’s on tap. The casino bill would allow gambling halls to hand out free or reduced-price drinks. The Senate included language in its version of the bill that would level the playing field by having any such provisions apply to all licensed establishments statewide. In other words, gone would be the nearly three-decade-old state ban on “happy hours.” CommonWealth’s Paul McMorrow, in his Boston Globe column last week, explained how the “happy hour” amendment was yet another effort to try to patch up a problem that casinos will cause -- in this case the hit to the local restaurant and bar economy.

“Happy hours” have been banned in Massachusetts since 1984 -- and, it turns out, with good reason. State House News Service reporter Andy Metzger recounts in graphic detail the bad old days of happy hours in the Bay State. With drunk driving fatalities piling up faster than empties in the Red Sox clubhouse, the story that finally did in happy hour involved a group of young people who got plastered on a September 1983 afternoon at a Braintree bar. One of them, a 20-year-old woman, ended up riding on top of a car through a parking lot. She fell under the car and was dragged 50 feet, sustaining fatal injuries, according to the SHNS story. The driver of the car had downed at least seven beers, according to the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission. “I guarantee you that if happy hours are restored, dozens of people will be killed or maimed on our highways because of it,” former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who signed the ban in 1984, told Metzger.

Allowing the statewide happy hour ban to be lifted would defy any sound public policy rationale -- such a proposal would never be under serious consideration on its own merits. Pulling the Senate amendment from the final bill, however, would put restaurants and bars at a further disadvantage. The amendment sponsor, Sen. Robert Hedlund, who claims he’s only interested in maintaining an even playing field for local businesses (including, presumably, the Braintree restaurant he is part owner of), said his first choice would be to ban free drinks from casinos, an idea that fell flat with his colleagues. That would seem to be the policy that makes the most sense. But good sense is not necessarily what’s carrying the day in this debate. Taking free drinks off the table would mean casinos have to rely on patrons who are in their right mind, and that, apparently, is the last thing the gambling moguls and their State House sponsors want.

--MICHAEL JONAS

BEACON HILL

Speaking of casinos, Greg Bialecki, the state’s top economic development official, bought stock last year in two casino companies while he was pushing for expanded gambling here. Bialecki sold the stocks last week following questions about the investments from the Globe.