Prospect for more jobs wipes out Rell's OTB veto

Hartford - State lawmakers rescued plans for off-track betting facilities at restaurants in New London, Windham and Manchester Monday, voting to override Gov. M. Jodi Rell's veto of a bill authorizing OTB simulcast screens in the three locations.

Following votes in the House and Senate, former City Councilor William Cornish said his plans to offer OTB wagering at 24 Eugene O'Neill Drive are very much alive, just 10 days after Rell's veto had threatened to doom the downtown New London project.

"They realized this is about jobs," Cornish said of those who backed the bill. "They voted for a small town."

State Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, hailed the House vote to repass the bill, which carried 110 to 28, with 13 members not voting. That was considerably more support than the bill got originally, when it passed, 99 to 43. A minimum of 101 votes - two-thirds of the membership - were needed to sustain the House override.

"This is a great day for New London," Hewett said, noting that in addition to the override, news broke earlier in the day that Electric Boat was buying a huge New London office complex vacated by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant.

"I had to pull over (on the highway) when I heard that on the way up," Hewett said.

Rep. Ted Moukawsher, D-Groton, who joined Hewett in voting to repass the bill, said the two of them had worked hard to change the votes of opponents.

The Senate, which had originally voted for the bill, 24-11, voted to repass it, 26-10.

Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford, who voted against the bill originally, restated her opposition but said she would let the override attempt "run its course" without attempting to block it. Her colleague, Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, who had voted against the bill in May, voted in favor of the motion to repass it.

"I must choose between my dislike for expanded gambling and the need to create jobs - and this will create jobs," Prague said before voting. "I wish there were some other way to create jobs."

Proponents of the bill contend the OTB facilities will generate scores of new jobs as well as around $60,000 a year for each of the three municipalities and about $250,000 a year for the state.

Senate Republican leader John McKinney of Fairfield, the most outspoken critic of Monday's override efforts, called the bill's passage "a huge mistake" and faulted its linking gambling to the success of three individual restaurants.

"We're expanding gambling,'' McKinney said. "Shame on us.''

Rell had said much the same in her June 10 veto of the bill, calling the proliferation of OTB facilities in the state "a worrisome and growing trend." With Monday's override votes, the number of OTB facilities at which bettors will be able to wager on live "simulcasts" of horse and dog racing and jai alai climbs from 12 to 15.

Simulcast screens will be installed at Cornish's as yet unnamed New London restaurant, at the Thirsty Frog restaurant in Willimantic and at Shea's American Grill in Manchester. In each, the OTB facility will be operated by Autotote, the company that bought OTB from the state in 1993.

Although the state's casinos have OTB facilities, the Indian tribes that own the casinos raised no objections to the OTB bill. The tribes did, however, question the state's potential introduction of keno, a computerized wagering game that Rell at one point had proposed having the state lottery operate in bars and restaurants.