Tribes, Bridgeport legislator toast bill that would extend hours of liquor service
Here’s something the casino-owning tribes and a Bridgeport lawmaker agree on: later hours of liquor sales.
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, a Bridgeport Democrat who backs legislation that could lead to a Bridgeport casino, has introduced a bill that would allow for "nightlife entertainment zones,” where alcohol could be served until 4 o’clock in the morning — two to three hours later than state law now allows.
The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes, respective owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, oppose the Bridgeport casino, but they’re on board with the later last call for alcohol.
“We’d welcome the opportunity to work with Rep. Rosario on his proposal,” Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman, said Thursday in a statement. Forty-eight hours earlier, he and Rosario had been on opposite sides of a sometimes heated legislative debate over a bill that could accommodate a Bridgeport casino plan hatched a year ago by MGM Resorts International, the tribes' longtime nemesis.
“We support any effort that would extend service hours at Foxwoods Resort Casino so that we can remain competitive,” Butler said. “Although 24-hour liquor service would be the optimal scenario and increase slot revenue to the state, extending service to 4 a.m. is a positive start and in line with what is permissible in New York and Massachusetts.”
The Mohegans, too, would welcome passage of Rosario’s proposal, a spokesman for that tribe said.
“It does give us parity,” Chuck Bunnell, the Mohegans’ chief of staff, said.
The bill would enable the tribal casinos — assuming they were included in nightlife entertainment zones — to match the liquor-service hours at MGM Springfield, the resort casino MGM Resorts opened last fall in Massachusetts. Regulators in the Bay State are expected to similarly approve late hours for Encore Boston Harbor, the casino Wynn Resorts is scheduled to open this summer in Everett.
“The tribes and I are on the same page on this,” Rosario said. “It is ironical.”
His bill, No. 6940, has gotten some early traction. It’s among a slew of bills the General Assembly’s Planning and Development Committee has scheduled for a public hearing Wednesday.
Rosario said he offered the bill in a bid to keep millennials from fleeing Connecticut and to help the nightlife entertainment industry compete with neighboring states.
"We have to offer an attractive nightlife in our urban areas,” he said. “It’s an issue we’ve been battling in Fairfield County, where we have to compete against New York state, where liquor is served until 4 a.m. People in southwestern Connecticut would rather go to New York, and then they’re on the highways late getting home.”
Rosario said Hartford-area business owners have told him they’re losing business to MGM Springfield because of the later hours of liquor service there. He said Bridgeport’s Steel Point area could qualify for designation as a nightlife entertainment zone, as could Blue Back Square in West Hartford, areas in South Norwalk, Stamford, Hartford and Danbury — and southeastern Connecticut’s casinos.
“I will extend the olive branch. I will testify with Chairman Butler on behalf of this bill,” Rosario said.
The proposal would require that the creation of nightlife entertainment zones be subject to a public hearing. It also calls for revenue from extended-hours permit fees to be shared between the state and the municipality in which a nightlife entertainment zone is located.
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