East Windsor casino town meeting sees overflow crowd
East Windsor — Several hundred townspeople packed an elementary school auditorium here Thursday night to vote on a proposed ordinance designed to derail the proposed casino the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes have agreed to build in the town.
Voting by paper ballot was to begin shortly before 9:30 p.m. The outcome of the vote was unknown at print deadline.
Also unknown was whether approval of the ordinance could upend the development agreement the town's first selectman signed in March with the chairmen of the two tribes, respective owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun.
Thursday night's town meeting, scheduled to take place at Town Hall, was moved across the street to the elementary school and then into the school's auditorium to accommodate the overflow crowd.
The town attorney opened the meeting by summarizing a legal opinion citing what he said are legal deficiencies in the proposed ordinance.
The ordinance would regulate gaming facilities in the town, and would bar a casino located within 2,500 feet of any state-run psychiatric treatment facility. Such a facility exists within 2,500 feet of the proposed casino site in town, which currently is occupied by a former Showcase Cinemas building off Exit 45 of Interstate 91.
Two selectmen, among the first speakers Thursday night, urged rejection of the ordinance.
"This is all about money," Selectman Steve Dearborn said. "The tribes are going to pay $8.5 million a year whether five people go there, or 5,000 people go there."
Brianna Stronk, a town resident involved in the petitioning effort that prompted the meeting, urged approval of the ordinance, which she said is "about something this town does a lot — regulate a business. No regulations (on gaming) now exist."
A yes vote favored rejection of the proposed ordinance.
Regardless of what townspeople think of it, the project cannot go forward unless the state legislature passes a bill authorizing it and the governor signs the legislation into law.
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