{"id":11463,"date":"2013-09-05T09:49:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T17:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11463"},"modified":"2013-09-06T08:54:48","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T16:54:48","slug":"beantown-brawl-wynn-vs-mennino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/beantown-brawl-wynn-vs-mennino\/","title":{"rendered":"Beantown Brawl: Wynn vs. Menino"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It wasn’t exactly a Profile in Courage day for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong> yesterday. It told the cities of Everett<\/strong> and Boston<\/strong> to work out their feud over a proposed Steve Wynn<\/strong> casino between themselves. Now what do you think are the chances of that producing a mutually agreeable result? Beantown Mayor Thomas Menino<\/strong> has made no secret of his partisanship toward the rival Suffolk Downs<\/strong> proposal backed by Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>. And Wynn Resorts<\/strong> seems to have been rather coy as to how much land in Boston it owns<\/a> and what it plans to do with it. To not have foreseen what Menino would do so seems … well, careless. Given the volatile personalities involved — Menino, Steve Wynn, etc. — the MGC is naive to expect everyone to join hands<\/a> and sing “Kumbaya.”<\/p>\n

Pissy casino opponents<\/strong> got faced by Massachusetts<\/strong> Attorney General\u00a0Martha Coakley<\/strong>. They’re trying to repeal Massachusetts’ casino-enabling legislation<\/a>. By the light of the Bay State’s constitution, reasoned Coakley, this would be an illegal ‘taking,’<\/a> the casino companies having bought in the reasonable expectation they could build casinos on it. You go, ma’am.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the MGC punted<\/strong> on Wynn vs. Menino because it is trying to “bulletproof” a \"\"bizarre arrangement between Penn National Gaming<\/strong> and Plainridge Race Course<\/strong>. The former lacks a potential casino property and the former needs a new owner. “Gaming commissioners questioned whether the law allowed for a new gaming entity to step into an agreement it had not negotiated and make itself subject to a community referendum arranged by a previous slots developer<\/em>.” Got all that?\u00a0Proponents argue that <\/span>Plainville<\/strong> shouldn’t be made to suffer for the track’s sins. As for Penn, already a two-time loser in Massachusetts, it’s not clear whether or not its name will actually be on the Sept. 10 ballot question. What’s certain is that <\/span>Penn will have to abide by terms negotiated by Plainridge<\/a>, which surely isn’t how the company hoped to enter the Bay State. Over in Milford, the leaders of Foxwoods Massachusetts<\/strong> continue to up the ante in what has to be, per capita, the most “george” revenue-sharing deal<\/a> in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"The design proposed<\/strong> by Wynn Philadelphia<\/strong> sure looks a heckuva lot like the one pitched to Everett<\/a>. Surely the design braintrust at Wynn Resorts can’t be that hard up for new ideas. (Then again, they tend to do the same design twice, then move on — think of Bellagio<\/strong> and Beau Rivage<\/strong>.) Wynn’s man in Philly, Dan Keating<\/strong>, is late of SugarHouse Casino<\/strong> (oh, cruel irony!) and argues that Wynn would be a game-changer, altering the profile of the Philly casino customer. Give Keating points for candor when he advised not to “plan on a casino to bring about urban renewal.” He also dissed Joseph “Tomato King” Procacci<\/strong> who rather foolishly “says he figured if everyone else was so interested in building a casino in South Philadelphia, perhaps he should do it himself<\/em>.” Yeah, that’s a compelling strategy ya got there, Tomato King. Ditto his naive “business is business” remark. Not in the casino industry. Keating contends that a Wynn hotel would raise ADRs in town and would come with its own water feature — the Delaware River<\/strong>. Now if only El Steve could figure out how to put some fountains in it …
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn’t exactly a Profile in Courage day for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission yesterday. It told the cities of Everett and Boston to work out their feud over a proposed Steve Wynn casino between themselves. Now what do you think … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,26,7,112,69,95,111,25,32,168],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11463"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11471,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11463\/revisions\/11471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}