MGM Resorts International has gone to the 2nd U.S. District Court of Appeals to argue its case that it is being discriminated against by the Connecticut law that authorizes the state’s two gaming tribes to select a site for a third tribal casino. The casino developer and the state argued their cases early last week.
The gaming developer presented arguments before a three-judge panel of the appeals court that the 2015 law gave unfair favoritism to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes over commercial developers, in part because the tribes would not be putting the casino on tribal land. MGM asserts that the law gives the tribes exclusive rights to site a casino.
The state’s Assistant Attorney General Robert Deichert’s rebuttal was that the law doesn’t prevent MGM from soliciting similar proposals from municipalities for a casino. He also asserted that the law doesn’t even guarantee that a commercial casino will be built. Instead, it authorizes the tribes to form a partnership, called MMCT Ventures to solicit proposals from various cities in the Hartford area.
The tribes operate the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. The third casino, while operated by them, would legally be a commercial casino.
The law is quite openly aimed at giving the tribes the means to build a casino in the Hartford area, near the Massachusetts-Connecticut boundary whose purpose is to blunt the effects of the $950 million MGM Springfield on tribal gaming when it opens in 2018.
MGM has been very aggressive in its efforts to stop this from happening. In June Judge Alvin Thompson granted the state’s motion to dismiss the case. MGM appealed.
One of the appeals judges on the panel, Robert Sack, observed: “It’s a vague injury, not a real injury,” and “It’s a signal that the rule isn’t for you.”
Nevertheless, MGM calls it “discrimination.” However, MGM’s own agreement with the city of Springfield prevents it from operating a competing casino within a 50-mile radius. Springfield is about 14 miles from Hartford. MGM gets around that objection by arguing that the state would make more money by allowing a casino nearer to the New York state border, near Bridgeport. MGM has said that it has studied building such a casino.
In their yearlong search for a site, the tribes have narrowed the selection down to Windsor Locks, East Windsor, East Hartford, Hartford and South Windsor.
The panel isn’t expected to rule on the case for several weeks.
Ethics Review
In a separate but related development, two members of the South Windsor town council have requested an ethics review of a fellow councilor and the town manager for statements they made to the Hartford Courant about a possible casino in the town. They are concerned that the statements violated the confidentiality of an executive session.
The councilor in question is M. Saud Anwar and the town manager is Matthew Galligan.
Councilman M. Saud Anwar made a comment in the November 16 issue of the paper that he had requested that the council vote against a casino in the town despite having filed an application and letter of support have been filed with MMCT. The city owns 22 acres that its letter proposes for the casino.
In the same article Galligan defended sending the application, saying, “nine town council people told me to go for it” and to send the letter. The council did not vote on the matter.
Councilor William Carrol is making the complaint and asking for the ethical review. “I don’t know how he got the idea that nine people told him to go for it. … There was never an ask about it. I remained quiet, and I shook my head. I did not speak up. Galligan actually looked at me at that time and said, ‘I know some people will be happy and some will be unhappy.’ I was clearly unhappy, but I didn’t say anything,” he said. He prefaced his ethics review request with “Topics discussed during our town council executive session should remain confidential.”
Anwar retorted that the same standards should apply to Carrol’s comments in the paper. However, Carrol said he was responding to a discussion that was initiated when Anwar called the Courant to make a comment.
His request would be reviewed by a three-member committee of the council, the mayor and the city attorney.
