Has Wynn’s luck run out?
By 
It was a good run for Wynn Resorts, the gambling behemoth that landed the big prize in the state’s casino sweepstakes when it was awarded the one license to run a casino (i.e., print money) in the Boston region.
But as the company moguls well know, luck is fickle thing. Indeed, their entire business model is run on the firm knowledge that patrons will ultimately experience net deficit of it. The question now: Could that immutable law become Wynn’s fate?
It turns out the company’s founder, Steve Wynn, had a penchant for grabbing more than just the losses of those flooding his many casinos. His Trump-like way with women led to a great fall, with the one-time casino king sent packing from the company that bears its name. Call it matter of cutting your losses.
The problem for Wynn Resorts is that Massachusetts established a very strict fitness and character provision in its gambling legislation, terms that caused a Wynn rival for the Boston license to be disqualified based on questions about a one-time business partner it had. With Steve Wynn now shown the door, the company is even signaling a willingness to consider airbrushing him entirely from the whole venture by removing the Wynn name from the $2 billion casino rising alongside the Mystic River in Everett.
But is it that simple? The Wall Street Journal, which first reported in January on allegations of Steve Wynn’s decades-long history of sexual harassment and assault, reported last week that Wynn’s escapades were well-known in — and enabled by — the company hierarchy. That’s a problem for the Everett casino, which state gambling commission chairman Steve Crosby has said the company is now building “on an at-risk basis.”
Yanking the company’s license and forcing it to sell off its half-built gambling palace, where thousands of construction workers are now employed, would be a huge disruption. “It will be ugly, and costly, and hard,” writes Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham. “But the Gaming Commission must do it. Or else concede that its high standards no longer apply once shovels hit the ground.”
It seems inarguable that Wynn would not have received the license if the state commission knew then what it knows now. They have a tough hand to play.
MICHAEL JONAS
BEACON HILL
The Senate passed legislation regulating — and taxing — short-term rentals. The bill takes a different approach than the House version and, unlike the House bill, is backed by Airbnb. (CommonWealth)
Lawmakers passed major criminal justice reform legislation, but they seem to be forgetting that reducing recidivism requires money for reentry programs when inmates return to regular life. Most of that money has dried up. (State House News, CommonWealth)
Joan Vennochi says president-in-waiting Karen Spilka should take a chill pill and let Harriette Chandler serve as Senate president until January, as planned. (Boston Globe)
Gov. Charlie Baker concedes that some of the State Police reforms he announced earlier this week will require negotiations with the union representing troopers to be implemented. (Boston Globe)
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A Berkshire Eagle editorial slams the Department of Revenue for its handling of state payments in lieu of taxes to communities like tiny Washington in western Massachusetts. The editorial said the state basically gave Washington the shaft.
Holyoke City Treasurer Sandra Smith said she informed Mayor Alex Morse that her office had been scammed for nearly $10,000, but Morse says he doesn’t recall that and didn’t learn of the incident until later. (MassLive)
Two Bourne residents have filed a complaint against two selectmen who published an apology to voters for confusion at a recent Special Town Meeting to vote on a ban on retail marijuana. (Cape Cod Times)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
The US Surgeon General urges more Americans to carry the opioid antidote naloxone. (NPR)
White House aides tried to ease Wall Street concerns over an impending trade war with China, saying the tariffs announced by President Trump were a “threat” that may never be put in place even as Trump continues to tweet his intent to move forward with them. (New York Times)
A Herald editorial backs President Trump’s order to deploy National Guard troops to help secure the US-Mexican border.
The New York Times spent more than a year combing over thousands of abandoned internal documents and offers a deep look at how the Islamic State remained in power through threats and intimidation.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Facebook said 87 million of its users were snared by Cambridge Analytica. (Time)
A Framingham city councilor has proposed buying and finally tearing down the billboards around the city owned by Clear Channel now that its parent company, iHeart Radio, has declared bankruptcy. (MetroWest Daily News)
Large commercial farms are squeezing small and mid-sized farms, many run by generations of families, out of the market. (U.S. News & World Report)
It’s the Red Sox home opener today but Keller@Large wonders who can really afford a day at Fenway Park anymore where the average cost of tickets and concessions is the highest in the major leagues.
EDUCATION
UMass is in talks to acquire private Mt. Ida College in Newton. (MassLive)
A new report says many school districts in the state have policies on “lunch shaming,” where a student is refused a hot lunch because of a negative balance in his or her account and usually given a cold cheese sandwich or other substitute, but found many schools don’t enforce the rules. (Standard-Times)
Boston Public Schools administrative offices are seeing an exodus of top level officials. (Boston Herald)
School districts in the country’s biggest cities are having a hard time finding top-flight candidates to take the superintendent positions. (U.S. News & World Report)
RELIGION
The former St. Frances Cabrini Church in Scituate, where parishioners occupied the building for nearly 12 years in an attempt to keep it open as a church and prevent the archdiocese from selling it, has been bought by the Coptic Orthodox Church and will be used for services for the Christian sect. (Patriot Ledger)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
The state’s Public Health Council approves the proposed merger of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health, moving the plan closer to the finish line. (Boston Globe)
Funding for a state program that reduces the cost of Narcan to cities and towns has run dry, causing a near doubling of the cost of the overdose-reversing drug to local communities. (Boston Globe)
TRANSPORTATION
Ari Ofsevit of TransitMatters urges the MBTA to think bigger when it comes to connecting the Red and Blue Lines. He argues the shortest connecting point (Charles/MGH) is not the best; the best would be Kendall. Ofsevit is also pushing an extension of the Green Line into the Seaport District. (CommonWealth)
Speaking of Ofsevit, a Globe editorial backs his earlier suggestion to free up a Seaport District ramp into the Ted Williams Tunnel for Silver Line buses. The ramp is currently off-limits to anything but Stare Police vehicles.
Falling concrete closes a Silver Line tunnel in the Seaport District. (MassLive)
Riders warn the cash-strapped Worcester Regional Transportation Authority that service cuts will lead to lower ridership and more budget problems. (Telegram & Gazette)
CASINOS/MARIJUANA
Proponents of legal marijuana filed a complaint with state officials claiming greeters at East Bridgewater’s Town Hall were handing out pamphlets under orders from a selectman urging voters to support a ban on retail pot in the upcoming special election. Selectman David Sheedy denies the charge. (The Enterprise)
Witch City Gardens, which wants to open a marijuana cultivation and retail facility in Salem, is promoting its local ownership and ties to the community and the approach seems to be working. (Salem News)
A worker was killed in an accident at the Wynn Resorts construction site in Everett (WBUR)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno criticized a judge who reduced a defendant’s bail, calling him a “violent offender’s dream.” (MassLive)
Hope Coleman, whose schizophrenic 31-year-old son was shot and killed by Boston police in 2016 who say he attacked officers and EMTs with a knife, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and city officials, including the officer who fired the fatal shot. (Boston Herald)
It’s a three-way law enforcement turf battle in Boston’s Seaport district, where Boston police, Massport officers, and the State Police are all jockeying to assert their jurisdiction there. (Boston Globe)
The 83-year-old owner of a Westport tenant farm who was facing 21 counts of animal cruelty after officials found more than 1,400 animals in abusive and squalid conditions has died before his trial began. (Herald News)
David Smith, the chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, defends the fake news promos read by staffers at all of its TV stations. (New York Times) A producer at a Sinclair station in Nebraska resigned over the company’s “obvious bias.” (CNN)