Suffolk Downs Loses in Boston, Wins in Revere
Historic East Boston racetrack Suffolk Downs found itself without a gaming partner as its plan to build a new $1 billion Las Vegas style casino resort in the neighborhood headed to a vote earlier this week, and the loss of Caesars Entertainment at the eleventh hour may have had something to do with the proposal’s defeat in Tuesday’s public referendum.
With relatively low voter turnout despite the fact that Bostonians set out to choose a new mayor for the first time in two decades, voters in East Boston roundly rejected Suffolk Downs’ casino project.
Plan couldn’t overcome last minute loss of Caesars partnership
Suffolk Downs, which said it was left reeling when it was forced to ask Caesars Entertainment to exit its partnership after Massachusetts gaming officials – now recognized as having some of the toughest standards in the nation – uncovered possible criminal connections to an investor in a Nevada hotel redevelopment project that would have seen the old Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall on the Strip transformed into an outpost of the Gansevoort, a posh hotel in the Meatpacking District in New York, has stated that it will make every effort to form a new casino alliance before the deadline to apply, December 31.
The ambiguity surrounding the new casino project was clearly on the minds of East Boston voters. With no time left to make up new ballots, Caesars’ name still appeared on the ballots this week, a fact that served as ammunition for those opposing the casino plan.
“Voters . . . struck a decisive blow to the casino culture, a clear signal that the Commonwealth believes there are better economic options than casinos and slot barns,” John Ribeiro of anti-casino group Repeal the Casino Deal told the Boston Globe.
Neighboring Revere was in favor of casino
Under the casino expansion law passed in Massachusetts in 2011, before state regulators will consider any casino applications, local voters first must approve host agreements made between the operators and the communities in which they intend to build.
Massachusetts will be issuing three casino licenses in 2014: two for full-scale resort casinos and another for a slots only gambling parlor. Regulators said last month that they expect to announce the slots licensee in January, with the two resort licenses to follow in April.
Because the site of the proposed casino at Suffolk Downs – a racetrack that has stood in East Boston since 1935 – affects the neighboring municipality of Revere, voters there also had a say on the matter on Tuesday, and unlike their counterparts in East Boston, they said yes.
Suffolk Downs moved quickly to express its interest in moving the entire project to a site in Revere, an idea welcomed by the city’s mayor, Dan Rizzo.
Acknowledging that time is running short, Rizzo was quoted as saying, “Fifty-three acres of the property are in Revere. If there is a way to reshape the project so it fits entirely in Revere, we’re going to pursue it.”
Mohegan Sun, which planned an offshoot of its Connecticut casino property, also came out a loser on Tuesday. Its proposed casino for the town of Palmer, Massachusetts, was similarly rejected by local residents in a public vote.
