Massachusetts’ Wampanoag Indian Tribe has lost a bid in federal court to overturn a requirement that the tribe obtain state and local building permits for a planned bingo hall in the town of Aquinnah.
The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the tribe’s request to rehear its earlier ruling affirming a U.S. District Court ruling in favor of the town.
The tribe has maintained that its sovereignty under federal law overrides the jurisdiction of the state and the local government and petitioned for the rehearing on the grounds of existing case law and the U.S. Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which governs gaming on tribal lands.
The bingo hall has been a sore point between the tribe and the local government dating back to 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Aquinnah’s appeal of a case that granted the tribe the right to build the facility, which is categorized under IGRA as Class II gaming and includes the right to operate machine games that are not house-banked.
With that decision in hand, construction of the 10,000-square-foot facility got under way, but was halted in 2019 after the town sued in District Court and won a ruling on the building permits.
The tribe had not indicated whether it plans to appeal the Circuit Court’s decision to the Supreme Court.
