Lots of court action lately. From Mark Pazniokas, CT Mirror:
Backed by the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations filed a lawsuit Wednesday to force Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to approve their gaming agreements with Connecticut and clear the way for them to jointly develop a commercial casino in East Windsor.
… Michael S. Black, a career BIA employee who is now the acting assistant secretary for Indian affairs, wrote a letter in September saying the Interior department saw no reason to act on the gaming amendments. That represented a stunning reversal, coming six months after another career official, James Cason, assured the tribes in writing that approval of amendments to the compact was virtually certain.
Uri Clinton, the senior vice president and legal counsel at MGM, said Black was within his rights in September to return the amendments without approval or rejection, saying that maintained the status quo.
“The tribes are wrong when they insist that their amendment is deemed approved by default,” Clinton said. “Approving a new, third casino is the opposite of maintaining the status quo. Precedent shows that an amendment is not ‘deemed approved’ when Interior returns it, plain and simple. And no lawsuit, not even one backed by the governor, changes those basic facts.”
MGM intends to seek legislative authorization next year to build a casino in Bridgeport, giving it access to the New York market.
Full story here.
This is always going to be a nonstarter. MGM sent Uri Clinton to promise nectar and lembas bread to the East Side of Bridgeport if they would just pester their legislative delegates to approve a waterfront casino in their neighborhood. “Jobs for all! Untold riches! Mead! Ambrosia! A chicken in every pot! A TV in every room!”
The truth of the matter is this: there’s more than enough gambling in Bridgeport. The state lottery commision offers a mind boggling variety of options for the gambler to piss away the rent money, from scratch off tickets to keno. There us an offtrack betting operation at Shoreline Star. A majority of neighborhood bars and taverns offer sports betting. That’s illegal in the state of Connecticut but who’s looking? There are cockfights, a large source of illegal gambling profits.
We do not need a fucking casino.