A MYSTERY BALLOT QUESTION submitted to the state attorney general’s office would allow the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to award a second slots parlor license as long as the facility is located within 1,500 feet of a race track.
The oddly worded question is sponsored by Eugene McCain, who did not return phone calls. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission said it had no information on the ballot initiative.
Activists in East Boston said they suspected the question was being pushed by Suffolk Downs, but Chip Tuttle, a top official with the track’s owner, Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, said his organization had nothing to do with it. “It wasn’t us,” he said.
The question would authorize the Gaming Commission to issue a second slots parlor license as long as the location of the facility would be within 1,500 feet of a race track, including the track and associated facilities “where a horse racing meeting may physically be held, which race track shall have hosted a horse racing meeting, provided that said location is not separated from said race track by a highway or railway.”
Some officials speculated that the question might pave the way for more than 1,000 slot machines at Suffolk Downs or the Brockton Fairgrounds. One slots parlor has already been approved and is up and running in Plainville.
The ballot question is listed on the attorney general’s website, awaiting constitutional review. If it passes muster there, the question’s sponsor would have to obtain more than 60,000 voter signatures to qualify it for the ballot.