Gaming board slams Foxwoods over missed deadline

Lawyers for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board today slammed the Foxwoods Casino developers for missing a Dec. 1 deadline to submit architectural renderings of its stalled South Philadelphia slots parlor, and advised against an extension to March 1.

In a filing, they also recommended that the board levy a daily fine against Foxwoods until it produces the plans.

The next board meeting is Jan. 8. The Foxwoods matter has not yet been added to the agenda, said Richard McGarvey, a spokesman for the gaming board.

In August, the board gave Foxwoods until May 2011 - an extra two years - to complete a casino with 1,500 slots in operation. At the time, deadlines were set for phases of the project.

The first required the developers to submit design plans to the gaming board by Dec. 1. Instead, Foxwoods asked for an extension.

Dale W. Miller, deputy chief enforcement counsel for the board, wrote that Foxwoods had offered no facts supporting its request, "only vague references to changing money markets and unnamed possible investors."

The Foxwoods partners had said potential lenders were holding back until Pennsylvania passed a law allowing table games at casinos. They said it would affect not only how much they could borrow, but also what type of facility they could build.

Miller rejected that argument. Foxwoods, he said, was obligated to build a project similar to the one proposed in 2006, when it won one of two slots licenses for Philadelphia.

"Foxwoods has begun no construction of a facility, provided no plan for financing a facility, and has provided a minimal amount of information," Miller said.

Stephen Cozen, a lawyer for the Foxwoods partners, could not be reached for comment.

Whether the seven-member gaming board adopts the recommendation of its enforcement staff may be a moot point. The General Assembly was on the verge of passing a gaming law that would give Foxwoods even more time to finish its project.

The majority partner in the Foxwoods development is a group including the charitable interests of the families of developer Ron Rubin, entrepreneur Lewis Katz, and Comcast-Specator chairman Ed Snider.