REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL is the only reasonable solution!
MASSACHUSETTS GAMING COMMISSION: New casino applicants allowed in S.E. region
The state Gaming Commission voted last week to push back deadlines and allow more applicants for a Southeastern Massachusetts casino.
Gerry Tuoti
Wicked Local Newsbank Editor
Posted Jul. 4, 2014
State gambling officials pushed back the region’s licensure schedule last Thursday and voted to allow new applicants into the process.
“If we don’t extend the deadline, then we really are facing the possibility where we’re facing one application,” Gaming Commission member James McHugh said.
Competition, he added, “dramatically improves the quality of the product.”
The vote to allow new applicants to enter the process reverses the commission’s previous stance.
Commissioners unanimously voted to push the next application deadline from Sept. 30 back to Dec. 1. The second-phase application deadline will now be March 27, 2015. Thursday’s vote marks the second time the Southeastern Massachusetts deadline has been pushed back.
Before Thursday’s vote, the only developers allowed to seek a casino license in the region were those that had already met a previous application deadline. They included KG Urban, which hopes to build a casino in New Bedford, as well as applicants who applied but were not selected for licenses in other parts of the state.
Foxwoods, which has examined potential casino sites in Fall River and New Bedford, is among the developers that tried and failed to secure a license elsewhere in the state.
Applicants are required to pay a nonrefundable $400,000 fee and pass a background check,
An attorney representing Bridgewater-based Claremont Companies and Canadian-based Clarivest Group advocated opening the region to new commercial applicants.
“The Group wants to compete for the resort-casino license, as it has the resources and what it believes to be the best location to make the development a success,” Clarivest attorney Walter J. Sullivan Jr. wrote in a June 19 letter to the commission.
That letter states that Claremont had previously worked with an applicant that passed a background check but the partnership dissolved. The casino developer withdrew after the Gaming Commission voted in April to alter minimum casino investment thresholds, according to Claremont.
Bridgewater, Fall River and New Bedford, submitted letters favoring a deadline extension. New Bedford, though, only favored a “modest” extension that would not significantly delay licensure.
Attorneys representing the city of Taunton opposed the extension.
While KG Urban supported the extension, it opposed allowing new applicants.
KG Urban principal Barry Gosin wrote in a June 23 letter that allowing new applicants would be unfair to the existing applicants.
The 2011 casino law allows up to three commercial casinos in Massachusetts, divided by region. MGM Springfield has been conditionally approved for the Western Massachusetts license. Mohegan Sun and Wynn Resorts are competing for the license in the Boston region, with their proposals for Revere and Everett, respectively.
Southeastern Massachusetts, or Region C, is behind the other regions in the licensure process. It was initially closed to commercial applicants, as the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe pursued a tribal casino in Taunton through a federal process outside of the state application system. State officials were concerned the market couldn’t handle two casinos in the same region.
As the tribe hit delays in its pursuit of land sovereignty, the Gaming Commission opened the region to commercial applicants. The tribe says it is still on track with its casino plans.
“There is a unique factor in this region, no matter how likely or unlikely, of competition from the tribe,” commission member Enrique Zuniga said.
The Gaming Commission meeting was held the same day Boston Mayor Martin Walsh called for delaying the awarding of the Greater Boston casino license until after the state election in November. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that a petition seeking a repeal of the expanded gambling law qualifies for the November ballot.
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