East Windsor — Some 400 people packed a middle school auditorium here Tuesday night to find out what a casino could do for their town. Or, maybe, to it.

Nary a discouraging word was heard, though.

After the chairmen of the casino-owning Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes and several of their allies discussed the possibility that a third Connecticut casino could be located on land off Exit 45 of Interstate 91, a procession of townspeople, one a selectman, voiced support for the prospect — or at least neutrality.

Many seemed eager for the town to land the proposed casino, which would be expected to stem an anticipated exodus of Connecticut gamblers to Springfield, Mass., where a $950 million resort casino is scheduled to open late next year.

Potential casino sites also are being considered in nearby Windsor Locks, where the tribes are scheduled to meet with residents Thursday night.

"I'm for this casino — 100 million percent," Selectman Steve Dearborn announced, citing the promise of tax revenue, jobs and a boon for small businesses in town.

"We're not growing, we're not going anywhere," he said. "It's going to put us on the map."

Dearborn shrugged off concerns about the traffic a casino would generate, saying the East Windsor location, site of a former Showcase Cinemas buidling, was better than those under consideration in Windsor Locks, including Bradley International Airport and a nearby tobacco field.

Kevin Brown, the Mohegan chairman, said the East Windsor site's "visibility" was a major factor.

Another East Windsor resident who spoke passed her résumé to Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman, who sat with Brown at a table on the auditorium stage.

As part of their presentation, the chairmen turned to Gary Paul, owner of Paul's TV in Groton, and Alice Soscia of the United Way of Southeastern Connecticut, both of whom extolled the virtues of the tribes and their respective casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.

Paul described how the casinos had "rescued" a southeastern Connecticut dependent on the defense industry, which downsized in the 1980s and '90s, enabling businesses like his to stay afloat. Soscia characterized the tribes as "caring, committed," citing their charitable contributions.

She urged the audience to "see the tribes through my eyes."

Members of labor unions long have supported the tribes' third-casino efforts. Andrea Goodrich, a table-games dealer at Foxwoods and president of United Auto Workers Local 2121, which represents 1,500 dealers at the casino, told the crowd it provides good-paying jobs and benefits for employees.

Brown and Butler acknowledged that the tribes will be hard-pressed to open a casino in East Windsor or Windsor Locks before MGM Springfield's scheduled September 2018 debut.

"Time is not our friend," Butler told reporters before Tuesday night's meeting. "Any delay in the process isn't going to be helpful. MGM isn't waiting for us to make a decision." 

Alliance speaks out against third casino

Earlier Tuesday, an alliance of mostly faith-based groups inveighed against the legalization of commercial casino gambling in the state, a step the legislature would have to take to make a third casino possible.

At a news conference in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, members of the Coalition Against Casino Expansion in Connecticut called for the state to conduct a study of the “economic and social costs” of casino expansion.

They said the issue should be put to a statewide referendum before the legislature takes any action and that any town identified as a potential casino site should be required to poll its residents in a local referendum.

State Sen. Tony Hwang, a Fairfield Republican, and former Republican Congressman Bob Steele of Essex, active opponents of gaming expansion, helped put the coalition together. Steele represented eastern Connecticut from 1970 to 1975.

“Connecticut has had a very unique relationship with casinos on tribal lands,” Hwang said. “The debate now is about casinos off tribal lands. ... We may be looking at a declining industry that’s at a saturation point. Are we allowing a duopoly to control gambling in our state?”

Steele warned that if the state authorized a Hartford-area casino, it would only be the first step in widespread expansion. He noted that the tribes, reacting to the prospect of out-of-state competition, initially proposed a total of three “satellite” casinos in Connecticut.

Other coalition speakers hammered home similar themes and also told personal stories of the ravages of gambling addiction.

The Rev. Dwight Dean, interim pastor of Windsor Locks Congregational Church, said casinos prey on society’s most vulnerable people, including those with low incomes and the elderly, while the Rev. Jan Gregory-Carpentier of the First Congregational Church of Westbrook said the gaming industry “relies” on problem gamblers.

“I have seen parishioners living on welfare checks who spend their money on lottery tickets and other forms of gambling and then come to us for help buying food,” she said.

She said a gambling addiction cost one of her relatives his marriage and, ultimately, his life to suicide.

Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, said it was significant that progressives and conservatives alike have joined the coalition, setting aside whatever disagreements they have on other issues.

“We’re a voice for the voiceless,” said the Rev. Paul Sinnott of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

Michele Mudrick, legislative advocate for the Connecticut Conference, United Church of Christ, said the coalition comprises a dozen member groups, a number she expects to grow.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com