By Frank Eltman
Garden City, New York (AP) 12-09
 A Long Island tribe with backing from deep-pocketed investors and high-powered lobbyists cleared a major hurdle this week toward federal recognition – the key for any tribe seeking permission to open a casino.
But the Shinnecocks still face daunting obstacles before they can start the roulette wheels spinning anywhere but on their tiny strip of seaside territory in the Hamptons.
Local elected officials and tribal leaders agree the summer playground
for the rich and famous would make a lousy location for a casino.
“I don’t feel the type of facility we’re envisioning would be right for
eastern Long Island,” said Fred Bess, a Shinnecock trustee leading the
tribe’s casino effort. He and others noted that existing traffic
nightmares – visitors must navigate a narrow highway into Southampton
and points east – and other quality-of-life issues would not be
conducive to attracting gamblers.
U.S. Rep. Timothy Bishop, whose district includes the Shinnecocks’
1.9-square-mile reservation, and local elected officials also oppose
gambling on the reservation.
Bess said the tribe would like to go elsewhere, but that “everything is
negotiable.” He estimated it would take 18 months to build a casino,
once permanent federal regulation is approved – possibly by next spring
– and other regulatory approvals are obtained.
Tribal leaders have a pending lawsuit in which they are laying claim to
more Hamptons land, but have expressed a willingness to negotiate a
settlement. Off-reservation possibilities include a planned resort in
Calverton in Suffolk County, the Belmont Park horse track in
neighboring Nassau County, Aqueduct Raceway in Queens or as far north
as the Catskills.
A state senator has written to Gov. David Paterson, suggesting a
meeting among Shinnecock leaders and state and local officials to
discuss the suitability of Belmont Park. The racetrack just outside New
York City is accessible by several major highways and has a Long Island
Rail Road station. In 2007, the tribe discussed a possible casino at
Aqueduct in Queens, but later dropped the plan.
A leading expert on gambling, however, said the odds are stacked against a casino off reservation land.
Bennett Liebman, head of Albany Law School’s racing and gaming law
program, said any land designated for a casino off the Shinnecock
reservation would have to be taken into trust by the federal
government. Only four off-reservation casinos have ever been approved,
and none since the 1990s, said Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Another obstacle is a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that
said tribes recognized after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act are
prohibited from having off-reservation land placed into trust, Liebman
said. There also is a federal requirement that an Indian casino be
located within 75 miles of the reservation, so that tribal members can
work there, Liebman said.
Bess is undaunted.
“I believe there are provisions set aside for newly recognized tribes that will address this,” he said.
The Shinnecocks first applied for federal recognition in 1978, but the
complicated process of authenticating ancestral records and other
historic documents wallowed for many years. The effort intensified in
2003, when tribal leaders were told that federal recognition was
required for any tribe wishing to operate a gambling facility.
Although most Shinnecocks live in modest homes on the seaside reservation, they have some powerful people backing them.
Detroit-based Gateway Casino Resorts has backed the tribe’s effort
financially. The company is run by Marian Ilitch, the matriarch of a
business empire that includes the Little Caesar’s pizza chain, hockey’s
Detroit Red Wings and baseball’s Detroit Tigers.
Tom Shields, a spokesman for Gateway, declined to comment. He noted the
federal recognition approval was a preliminary ruling and the tribe
still must await a final ruling sometime next year.
The tribe spent $920,000 on lobbying between 2004 and 2008, according
to data from a government watchdog group, the Center for Responsive
Politics. Bess said that money came from Gateway.
Leading the lobbying effort was Mercury Public Affairs, which is run by
two of former Gov. George Pataki’s top aides, Kieran Mahoney and
Michael McKeon. A 2004 letter from Bess to Mahoney noted the monthly
lobbying fee for 2005 was $20,000 a month. McKeon said the current
figure is lower, but declined to elaborate.
“They are professionals in the gambling field,” Bess said. “This is a
gamble for them, too. If we never open a casino, they don’t get their
money back.”
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