 on 30 January or June 21st, 2018 that our office is on federal store. The first item is always the minutes. Sure, Mr. Chairman. When the agenda was posted, we thought we'd have the meeting minutes ready, but as you can see from looking through the packet, we are still working on those June 7th meeting minutes. We'll have them at the next commission meeting. At our next commission meeting, which will be in Plainville on Tuesday at 5.30, I think, where we're both going to have a Plainville report from Plainbridge Park Casino, as well as a presentation of the research data that we've collected now. We've had two full years about, we've had three full years of the operation of Plainbridge Park Casino, and we've done very, very extensive research on the social and economic impacts of that casino on Plainville and its surrounding communities in the first two years. And we decided it would be a good idea to go back to Plainville and the surrounding communities where we had several meetings before the casino and report back to the people from Plainville and surrounding communities on precisely what the social and economic impacts event. So we're going to have a special meeting next Tuesday night in Plainville at 5.30. It'll also be streamed live on the web. Where's the meeting? Ed, is it at Town Hall? No, it's at the Senior Center in Plainville, Tuesday at 5.30. Okay, great. And we will have the minutes then. Next up, Executive Director Pedroza. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Just a couple updates before I get to with the MGM opening update. A couple of legal issues. You might have seen a letter sent to us by legal representative mass gaming and entertainment, which was the entity that applied for the Brockton license in Region C. They have asked the commission to specifically reconsider the Brockton license. Staff is working and that obviously implicates the Brockton application. Yeah, the Brockton application. Yeah, thank you. That's the license, the Brockton application for the Regency license. That obviously implicates a lot of sort of Regency issues. I've been working with the legal department and staff. I would anticipate that we would come back in front of the commission at our next meeting or sometime in July and have a proposed response or process for the commission on that date for public discussion. July 19th. At this point, it looks like it'll be July 19th, subject to potential movement. The other update is you might have seen that one of the principles of FBT has filed a lawsuit regarding the 2013 land transaction ever. Just as reminder, this is the third lawsuit from either FBT or principles of FBT. The first one was against their former lawyers. The second one was against us. The third one now is against Wynn. We will obviously conduct the appropriate review of that matter and continue to monitor the litigation, but you probably have seen it yourself. But to be clearly suit is by one of the landowners against Wynn not involving us. Correct. Yeah, the second one. The first one was against former lawyers. The second one was against us. This now third one is against Wynn. Correct. Okay, on to the MGM opening update. I'm happy to tell you that things are going along at a very expeditious pace. That the construction is going along, you know, both incredibly fast and it's amazing to think of everything they will still need to get done. We were out there on Friday with our meeting, which will start to pick up in tempo with the MGM folks, took a tour of the property. We also have our gaming preparation school for new gaming agents and members are a gaming enforcement unit that's been happening. They spent the last two days here with a prominent teacher of table game cheating, giving them two days of both demonstrations and videos of various ways in which people have cheated and probably will attempt to continue to cheat in the future. So it was both very entertaining and informative and a little daunting to think of all the ways that people have come up with trying to cheat. But cheaters should be where that we know about them, all these things because we have cameras everywhere. It's a bad place to cheat. And that was I think one of the takeaways is they just had all this video of all these things that that happened. So and I will tell you also some of these cameras were historic views from years and years ago and I've seen the cameras that are going into to MGM Springfield. It will be night and day in terms of the quality and clarity of the cameras. So even more of a warning. In terms of our slot machine preparations, 2,500 slot machines on premise 2,300. So over 2,300 are in place. The rest are probably waiting, you know, some minor final construction in areas before they can be secured and put in place. 348 are actually verified. This was as of a couple days ago. But I know that our folks are, you know, picking up in speed and tempo. The more they do, the better they get. So we would anticipate that we hopefully will have all the machines in place verified with the state seal by approximately the third week of July. So that is I do think it's appropriate to add a little humor here that all of these 2,500 slot machines have been manufactured somewhere and shipped into Springfield, whereupon the techs from MGM and from the Gaming Commission open them up to set them up. One of those 2,500 new slot machines had inside it a baby possum. Where did it come from? Not a mouse, a baby possum that you'll be pleased to know was fed and released. Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was told to expect the unexpected in this job, so certainly that fulfills that. As far as hiring goes, a report from MGM Springfield yesterday that they currently have 328 employees. Approximately 29% of those are Springfield residents, but they expect that number to go up as the mass hiring starts. Really? What was the number again? Right now they have 328 onboarded employees. 29% are Springfield residents. This is probably more upper management. I think they would expect Springfield residents to help fill in some of the service employees and gaming jobs, so they expect that number to go up. 2,200 job offers made and just under 800 left to make, and they had a hiring event this week on the 18th and 19th. They made 520 offers, and 53% of those are Springfield residents. So obviously that's, I think, the reflection of where they think the numbers will come from. So that is... One other gratuitous comment. We're all, I think, being hard, being careful to try to keep our expectations down and not count our chickens till they hatch. But I must say that when Governor Baker went out and took the tour, Governor Baker, who's never been a fan of Cassino Gambling, he was laudatory about the project and really expressed enthusiasm and excitement about what you all are trying to do, what we all are trying to do, but particularly you all. So that's a credit. That was impressive for him to put his almost emotions on the line like he did talking about it, so we're all excited. Yep. So with that, that is the end of my MGM update presentation. So I think that is it for me. Okay. Next up, Mr. Connolly. All right. I think we have a full team from MGM coming up to join me. So two items on the agenda today. First is exemption requests, employee exemption requests. There are 20 positions that are being put forward to you today for exemption requests. The packet, you'll see there's 22, but two based on subsequent conversations we've had and a more detailed understanding of those facilities positions and their work on the gaming floor. We're pulling those out for consideration. So it's just the two Barber and Master Barber MGM positions and the vendor positions that are being that we're recommending be considered today. Of note, there's a number of vendor positions. So there's 18 positions for vendor employees. What they, what that means is there are those 18 positions for in the entertainment block really between the movie theater, Kringle Candle, and Honus Jewelers employees that will be working within the boundaries of the gaming establishment, but are working for a third party vendor. We're requesting that those be exempted. But importantly, several of those positions deal with the service of alcohol, particularly in the theater and as well to a much more limited degree at Kringle Candle. This is, you know, this is an important issue and the way I framed it and frankly agreed with MGM and again at MGM is doing this really on behalf of the vendors. If the, if this the casino were operational, frankly, we would have the vendors here themselves doing it, but it's obviously at a point in time at which it's much easier to have MGM kind of do that upfront representation in this process for the vendors. But I am recommending that they am forwarding these to your for your consideration with the recommendation that they be exempted. The issue as I see it and as I thought about it and as we discussed it collectively is there's really two ways to look at it. The argument against exempting them is that these individuals will fall under the alcohol or the gaming beverage license that is still to be issued that we administer. And so we take that very seriously, obviously. And we would, you know, we don't exempt bartenders in the casino or on the floor or in the bar in the restaurants at at the casino proper. Why should we exempt these? That that's an argument against the argument for is that as has been mentioned numerous times the Springfield casino is really a different kind of endeavor and the statute probably did not contemplate the type of casino that that is being put in place in MGM Springfield with movie theaters with bowling alleys with this level of additional entertainment and retail and that the statute probably didn't even contemplate pulling individuals like this into the licensing schema. So, you know, we should maybe view it that way and that kind of weighed heavily on my thought as well if there were any issues with either of these vendors or individual employees and their practices and how they dealt with alcohol service and controls. You know, first and foremost we would talk to MGM, right, and we would tell them that we're seeing problems or we're perceiving problems with the activities of their vendors and ask that they be corrected. If problems persisted, you know, it could put their license in jeopardy or a condition of their license. If theoretically one of those areas had a lot of alcohol violations, commission could always condition it and remove that licensed area from the license, thereby removing the ability to serve alcohol. And thirdly, each of these vendors is registered with us as a non-gaming vendor and that would put their registration in jeopardy if they continued to violate it. So, I say that to express that as we thought about the issue, my concerns about licensing these individuals given their unique roles is much lessened because we still have a number of ways that we could exert influence and regulatory authority over the employers, particularly if not those specific employees through their registration. Questions or comments? Yeah, in having this conversation with Director Conley, I too obviously had concerns, but you know, my experience with this is, is individuals that are or near the floor and this is quite removed and secondly, your thoughts and comments about the levers that we still have, not that we expect to have to use them because I do expect MGM to properly supervise and take care of situations. They're experienced, they don't want these issues that's not in there in their best interest to have any kinds of issues that would come to our attention. So, I was persuaded that this is proper and the risk is very minimal here. Anybody else? Yeah, I'm persuaded as well. I think, you know, there's the only difference here on many of the exemptions that we did for the entertainment block is that they're a vendor employee as opposed to an MGM employee and I see that distinction really of no consequence for the purposes of this discussion, especially when you point out that there's these controls and mechanisms that we have if any of these turn out to be an issue. I happen to think that a background is not a predictor necessarily of any of those issues that we talk about in terms of potential concerns, but I agree with that recommendation and I think it's a sensible request. Anybody else? I guess we need a motion, right? You do, and I just, again, the packet contains 22 positions. At this point, we're only asking collectively that you consider 20 of those to exclude two facilities positions. The first two. The first two, yes, we're asking that you do not consider those for exemption at this time. Because they do have a presence from time to time on the floor. That's correct. Mr. Chairman, I move that the commission approve the gaming service employee exemptions for the MGM Springfield positions as included in the packet, as well as the vendor employee positions as provided for in the packet. As amended by Director Connolly. Yeah, with the exclusion? With the exclusion of the facilities in video staff positions. Second. Second. For the discussion, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have unanimously. Great. So next up is the application for the gaming beverage license for MGM Springfield. You'll note that we were here previously in late May to introduce the alcoholic beverage license application really for the casino itself as well as importantly the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. And there was a lot of discussion about that. What was outstanding at that time was the plan for the outdoor plaza area. And we had promised that we'd come back at a later date to discuss that in more detail. And today is that date. The hope is that today we could have a vote on the alcohol beverage license, the gaming beverage license in its entirety. And again, remind the commission, you don't need to be reminded, but just to say it again, you can condition the license in any way you want. So the application is the application, but you can decide on specific areas and condition it how you see fit. There is a note, and I actually have the wrong memo in front of me. So I apologize if I don't have it off the top of my head. But there's a few things that we know that are outstanding. That would be a condition of the license that would want to follow up on, which is there are a number of those tenants, for example, the theater and Kringle, that we don't have the jointly responsible parties named as of yet. And also there is an additional retail outlet to be named. So because of where they are in their development process, they just don't have the names yet. We expect those once those are available and those would be added to the license as a supplement. So just I want to make sure that that's clear that I'll be monitoring to make sure that information is submitted. But again, there's the kind of what I think of as the standard gaming beverage license application for the casino and all of the joining areas, including the entertainment block that was discussed at a previous meeting. There's the 2 to 4 a.m. as you separate the issues, which is obviously of great significance. And there's a specific plan about how to shrink the area and deal with that drinking or alcohol service in that specific time frame. And the outdoor Plaza and again the outdoor Plaza is one that we touched on briefly, but MGM has worked to provide a lot more detail that you see in the appendix to the application. So we've been working with MGM for quite a while on this about how they would secure the area, how they would define the area, because again with outdoor the concerns would be that if it was too porous that people would take their drinks off-site and kind of wander off into the local community, which wouldn't be desirable intentionally or unintentionally. And also we wanted to make sure that for the normal course of events as well as special events, that security planning and surveillance was sufficient to make sure that incidents were not only kind of spotted and potentially warded off, but also that a robust response would be imminent. MGM provided us with a lot of that detail obviously and it's in the packet. And it was I do want to say it was a lot of good collaborative work back and forth between the MGM folks and the commission. And so all that being said, we've deemed the application substantially complete with those few items still to be filled in. And we feel that they've been responsive to the questions that we've posed to them. So I am forwarding at this point the gaming beverage license to the commission with a recommendation that it be approved subject to any conditions that you see fit. Should we take this in two steps? I think the way I see it, I think there's kind of three, the three areas, kind of the general license, the two to four a.m. and the outdoor. The outdoor kind of falls in with the general, so to speak, because it would be a lot of those same hours. That has nothing to do with the two to four. But I do I think as a licensed area deserves specific discussion. Yeah, so let's take the outdoor area first and confine our comments to that, unless somehow they overlap. And then we can move on to the two to four. Reactions to that plan as laid out in our books? I thought we were going to have MGM speak to us about their specific plans for the outdoor area. I think probably now would be the appropriate time. Sure. And before I do that, if I could, we've heard, I think in two contexts so far today, the exemptions and the exceptions to the license application vendors that we have yet to identify, one of them being the movie theater. I'm going to pass it off to Mike Mathis for a minute, because we have identified that operator and are officially papered. And so I'd like Mike to be able to make that announcement, explain to you who's in the operating or movie theater. Can I just get some credit for not letting it slip? Yeah, good job. Thanks, Seth. And thank you, Paul and Ed. You guys have been great working through this process. Paul, in particular, not just because you're giving us a couple of good recommendations this morning, but really you've kept, your staff has kept pace of our heavy workflow, especially on the onboarding side. So I just want to recognize that ongoing effort, which has been incredibly important. I am, thank you, Seth. I'm happy to announce our movie theater operator. I always usually get the benefit of giving the good news. But in this particular case, I spent two long days in Knoxville, Tennessee, making sure we got this final agreement over the line. So I've got a lot of sweat, sweat and tears in this, but we're partnering with Regal Cinemas to do a luxury seven screen movie complex. It's going to be a great entertainment space, large bar space, great open space, right on the, right on the retail plaza and couldn't be more excited. This is their first venture into this part of the state. I think you've got a couple of Regals on the eastern part of Massachusetts. But I think as we, as we predicted, we make the kind of investment we make and we bring the kind of other quality co-tenants to a complex like MGM Springfield and we'll attract national brands, brands that have had entered the market previously. So I think this is a great partnership that's going to really create that mixed-use family experience that we've talked about along with our bowling and can be more excited to have them as partners. When you say luxury, does that mean only the reserve seats and the big reclining seats and everything or some of that? What do you mean by luxury? No, exactly right. This is their full leather, we call it full recline, and all, I think it's about 650 seats or so. And there'll be service in the premium service in the lobby, for instance, alcohol, that then you're allowed to bring into the theater. Having been through a couple of these experiences, a movie is much better when you've got a beer or two. It's my experience, so. What is it? That's right. So really excited about it. And yeah, it'll be, it'll be, and there's a couple of smaller theaters within the seven that I think will give them the flexibility to do different types of movies in addition to the first run. So they are, Regals, Regals in the movie business, what we are in the gaming business, which is really forward thinking. I believe they're the number two operator in the world. They've just partnered with a large parent company out of Europe, and some of the stuff they're doing is really cutting edge, including some of that innovative, I think they call it 4DX, which is something that we're going to look at in the future, which is, you know, that full immersive experience where the seats move. They throw a missed at you, a sense at you. So this is a really forward thinking company, and we're excited to be partners with them. Great. Congratulations. Thank you. That's great news. Great. Thanks, Mike. So while jumping to the, I'm going to do a quick overview of the outdoor plaza proposal. And is this, can I flip using this? Yeah. Okay. You can use that. Okay. All right. Great. So what I want to start off with is, I got to forward this. Yeah. Is why we're looking to do this. You know, Springfield is really trying to develop a walkable entertainment district and activate downtown urban areas within the city. And we think this is a really critical part of it. Some of the questions that we had previously received from the commission as well, is this, where has this been done before? Has it done successfully? Are there issues? And we looked right in our own backyard in Springfield. There are several outdoor events that happen from time to time in the downtown core that are very successful and involve entertainment and alcohol consumption outside in public areas. And those are generally run by the Springfield Business Improvement District. We have joining us today to my right, Chris Russell, who's the executive director of the Springfield bid who runs these events, including White Line Wednesdays, cruise nights, et cetera. And so I've invited him here to just briefly address for the commission why, what the experience has been with customers and patrons appreciating this opportunity and doing it responsibly, as well as what it means for continue to develop downtown Springfield and activating the downtown area. So if you could, Chris, just briefly address that for us. We'd appreciate it. Sure. Thanks, Seth. Good morning. I was asked to come just to speak with our experience of outdoor programming. We were redesigned and spent a lot of time and money in producing and promoting these outdoor events. Very successfully, they were designed originally to drop people out of the office or to keep people in the downtown after work hours. They've been, they've quickly taken off very successful and are now not only keeping the workforce in the downtown for a bit after work, but it's attracting people from the greater region around Springfield. So the biggest value to these events that we see is one, we've had zero incidents. That's absolutely zero. They're mobile, so we're able to move them throughout different areas of the downtown that we deem, see, you know, need to see attention or there's a new retail experience that we want to, you know, highlight. So we move them around the downtown and they're, they've changed the dialogue about the city center and its popularity and changing the public perception about safety. So if you have any questions about these events, we've been doing these new events for about four years. They happen weekly. We have three regularly scheduled events, two of which serve alcohol today and that's White Line Wednesday and our cruise night. I would love to hear details about exactly what you do and how you keep it safe and secure. Sure. Part of that is in tight management. We have in place controls, both public and private security that, that, you know, monitor the area. We don't have extensive camera system for surveillance. But everybody that works for the event is been informed up front that this has to be a zero tolerance of any type of issue that may pop up or rise. So we have private staff that has hired for these events as well as public police that are hired for these events to monitor what's going on in the event. Controls in place are making sure that anybody that's consuming alcohol is of course of age. They're tip certified porers that we use for all of these events. We work very closely with all the city departments. Some of the events happen on public spaces in our parks. Some of them happen in private spaces and that would be plazas from some of our downtown towers. And they're all monitored and we have a, you know, we have a zone that we allow the alcohol consumption to take place. Beyond that is, you know, no go as far as all the staff is concerned. We communicate that through signage orally and just how we market the events. We're bringing young professionals. They're very, very successful. They include not only alcohol, they include non-alcoholic beverages, food, music, culture. And they're really designed to social networking events and they've been tremendously successful. And if I could, Chris, because Chris and I spoke about this very issue in advance, you know, our proposal as you'll see is going to have, is will be much more secure from the standpoint of surveillance, active security barriers due to the size and the scope in the rotating location in their track record. They've worked very closely with the city to ensure that a lot of your controls are generally through education to patrons and folks having clearly delineated space and understanding the rules. And it's been very successful with zero incidents. So we believe that we do the same thing and then layer on top of that hard barriers, fixed security post-surveillance, a law enforcement presence on site regularly that that'll go above and beyond what, you know, the bids had as a very successful model working closely with the city incidentry. I will add one of the reasons why when I was asked to come and speak to you that I felt very strongly about MGM having the ability to provide these type of events is because what we've done on a very small scale has changed the perception and the street activity of what we were used to five years ago in downtown Springfield. So we now have young professionals, you know, really in highly visible areas, mingling, enjoying themselves, having a good time. Again, a track record of over four years of zero incidents in any way, shape, or form. And I just think this will further our mission where we've spent a lot of, you know, we're funded by the property owners in downtown to, you know, challenge, you know, challenge us in new ways of creating a better environment downtown and having them weave into the fabric of downtown as opposed to keeping folks just internal I think is very, very important to the city. Yeah, the city of Boston does it does it very successfully as well. I have a question relative to what you alluded to. There's what would you communicate by signage and orally. Is there in the events that you talk about with their alcohol, how do you manage or how do you, is there a demarcation understood that people are not supposed to go beyond for the consumption of alcohol? Yes, exactly. All of our events we have a site map in advance that whether it's a public or private entity that's hosting the event or is the host site. We go over with their management, their security, where the confines of the area to serve alcohol, they're very soft borders. We don't want to make it seem like the okay corral with a very hard presence around the event, but they're very soft, but they're clearly defined and whether they be plaza areas that have, you know, landscaping and boundaries around them, street corners, and we monitor those perimeters very carefully. If I can just add, I think I've attended a number of these events and to Chris's point, I think it really does highlight the best of downtown Springfield and in terms of, we've always talked about as one of the most walkable cities in the Commonwealth and it has some beautiful backdrops between Court Square and some of the historic buildings, and every time I've been to the event, I've seen different people that you don't see in Springfield and I think exposes them to really all the wonderful things that are going on downtown, including the young professionals in the community that we're building, which includes some of our employees I think I've talked to you in the past. We've got a number of our young professionals that are making the choice to live in market-rate apartments across the street from the project and they love it that they can walk to work and that they can as a community go to the local bars and restaurants together. MassLive always does a review after the fact of sort of photo gallery of little candid shots of people that are participating in the events and I'm always struck by the diversity of folks. You have people from Worcester and Ludlow and the Berkshires and Summers, Connecticut and I think these type of outdoor events really speaks to the millennials and it's something that's going to draw a different group of people to downtown and really expose them to the transformation that we're all doing down there and I commend the bid, we're members of the bid and we're going to continue to support these types of events including hopefully in our plaza. Great, thanks Mike and I'm glad to raise the MassLive piece that as Chris spoke to it really helps with the image of people seeing people downtown Springfield having fun. The risk is that you're in photos and I told my wife last week that I was working late and the next day I was on the front page in a White Line Wednesday photo and she said oh really you're working late so there's a little risk when all the photos are online. So what are the hours of your activities? The hours vary on the event. Most of the events, the afternoon to the evening events start at 4 p.m. and some go from 4 to dusk which would be cruise night, White Line Wednesday may go a little bit later into the evening about 9 p.m. and then we host different music events. We have a jam fest that we actually raise awareness and funds for NAMI which is the National Alliance for Mental Illness. That is an all day, all night event and that goes from 10 a.m. till 12 30 p.m. So depending on the event and how it's advertised and how it's structured the hours do vary but most of them do start early afternoon and go and the alcohol is served until 12 30 and those? No, we actually shut alcohol for the later event. We shut that an hour before the event 11 30. Close this yes. Great thank you Chris. So I'll proceed through and I want to highlight really what are the elements that we've worked through very carefully with staff to to ensure that we have a safe and responsible experience in our plaza and at a high level. Excuse me, sir. I just got a text message a couple minutes ago saying that our meetings would be a lot better with a couple of beers too. So we will we will we propose limiting the hours of operation for for of the plaza for consumption of alcohol to midnight. We propose 24 7365 days of surveillance coverage of the entire plaza. We will ensure that alcohol is only consumed from plastic containers and that when outside of licensed areas and so that's a there will be a few patios that are licensed areas themselves where for instance tap you'll be able to sit outside and have a glass of a beer but if you were to leave that licensed area into the plaza then you'd have to convert to plastic. We'll have robust security protocols including signage which you'll see an example of in a moment. Fixed security post which is one of the items we work through with staff we had originally intended to have a full-time fixed position but agreed that it made sense to control one of the larger areas which we'll show to you. Some additional bollards to add perimeter delineation, perimeter fencing and roving security. We also have industry leading alcoholic beverage training, responsible alcohol service training for all of our employees and we will have an incentive program for employees to to report any minors found consuming alcohol or any violations of the law or our rules. What do you mean an incentive program? And so you actually you get gift certificates for instance for for reporting of successfully reporting a violation. We have internal incentive programs to incentivize self-reporting internally. So again we we propose a combination of signage, security posts, surveillance and perimeter delineation. Here you'll see on this slide is what our signage would look like and I'll show you in a minute where those would be posted. We'll have a combination of fixed security and roving security. Our roving security will generally be on bicycles. We have high definition PTZ which Executive Director Bedrosian just learned last week means pan tilt zoom. Monitoring the plaza so we have full coverage by our surveillance team. Seth quick question. Typically surveillance that the responsibility is not to monitor I mean they monitor everything but not specifically to be part of your alcohol consumption. You know I mean so you're are you going to train security in other words rather surveillance folks to really look at that plaza and look for violations is that part of their training because that's typically not their role. Yeah that's a fair question and we don't have our surveillance executive here but I think generally the answer is no it won't be active actively we won't be actively looking for underage drinkers through surveillance but what it will allow us to do is to really evaluate what's going on the plaza see when there maybe there's an issue developing or retrospectively figure out where the problems are where if we're finding that people are getting in or there there is an issue with we hope there won't be but if there is an issue with folks being able to say find a corner where they can hand off a beverage to an underage we'll be able to have that that ability to analyze what's going on and make adjustments in our program based on it being fully surveilled. That was my next question the biggest problem that I'm aware of with outdoor drinking facilities is the ability for a person over 21 to then hand an alcoholic beverage to someone in the crowd who is underage. So how will you be how many first of all how many drinks will you allow one person to come up and buy that then take back out into the plaza. Okay this is where I'm going to invite the other two folks we have with us our head of food and beverage and head of security to join us maybe if you could switch out because I think they'll be able to help answer those questions more directly. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Jason Rucker executive director of security for MGM. So first thing I want to talk about real quick is the difference between surveillance and security so we have two separate monitoring rooms where surveillance is going to focus as you know on the floor on the gaming aspect where my team is more focused on the perimeter and the non-gaming aspect so it's a completely different set of eyes they're looking for different items. Okay my question was about specifically one individual buying drinks and then taking it back out to the plaza. Yes it'd be one drink per per guest you walk up you're not allowed to buy we would follow the normal laws of the Commonwealth where no you know we're not going to serve pitchers of beer it's going to be one beer for one guest usually two in lots of locations you can buy two drinks and take it out so you're only allowing one drink so correct an individual comes out this is just for the outdoor plaza we would just allow one if you're inside a bar in Massachusetts you can get two yes or Fenway Park you can get two that's my point that's because the whole area is licensed outside bar or yeah so one drink one great that should help with that issue then thank you and there's no pitchers serving in Massachusetts either correct so we've broken this down our plan to basically our standard operations and that special event and I'll go I'll go through these and we're happy to answer any questions but so during our standard operations which I'll actually flip to the map I think it's easier easier to look at here but what we've done is we've identified what we propose to be the area permitted alcohol consumption within Armory Square in the plaza and you'll notice we've carved out a few areas from the overall perimeter because it's allowed us to more narrowly control the access points and so what you'll see grayed out areas one through six are what we've identified as really the only access points to the to that plaza certainly the largest one is area one which it looks like an under upside down question mark and that is the that is the rotary on Howard Street and so talking about that one first because that is really the the largest area we have a combination of bollards around around the cul-de-sac itself to delineate that you're stepping off a property we'll use signage the signage we showed you earlier to to indicate that alcohol is not allowed beyond that point but then as you go up the street the bollards trail off and there is some open access and so in working with staff we said well what what we could propose to really ensure that that area is protected is that we have a fixed security post there and you'll see that indicated there's a there's a small dot it's hard to read from a distance but you'll see the red line of sight from that security post showing where that security post would be able to monitor covering that entire area feel to detect and intervene to the extent that individuals were either purposefully or inadvertently stepping off the property with with an alcoholic beverage is that is that what's demarcated here as area one set correct that's the point that then you can look in both directions yeah say that's the demarcation that's right and so we work with Jason and his team and he will have a physical post well physical is not that he will have a a there won't be an officer posted so that will be their permanent post they switch out in what three hour shifts three hour shifts that will rotate but there will be someone there full-time monitoring and likely to be more of a customer service in reminding people just a reminder you can't step off property if someone looks like they're going going to do that and I think through constant vigilance and communication people will get the message very quickly and we'll be able to monitor and ensure that we don't have any issues moving on areas two three four and five are very similar they're very narrow areas breaks and fencing that someone could pass through off-site and we're proposing that a combination of signage and clear demarcation through through borders adjacent to those areas as well as a roving security would be sufficient to protect against really any issues where you have any material issue with folks coming and going from the property with with alcoholic beverages and those are really that when you see the property on site those feel like the back of the property and there we really don't anticipate high volume but we feel confident that because they're narrow and through signage and roving security we could easily protect those and then the final one is area six which is a slightly larger area going on to Union Street we've proposed adding additional bollards that didn't previously exist to assist with a demarcation of that as a property border along with signage and you'll see that there is a surveillance camera surveillance cameras are indicated in the yellow dots right at that spot that can help us when roving security isn't present to have the ability to monitor that area so we feel comfortable that in a steady state again this will be not a special event so we don't anticipate really high volume these protections will be sufficient to ensure a safe and responsible experience outside can I go can you go back for me so you're proposing there there will not be any consumption on the park correct the park although we will we will basically run and maintain the park and our license agreement with the city that is a city property is not part of the gaming establishment so it would not fall under our gaming beverage license we do anticipate however from time to time we may work with the city to put an event on there and at that time we would do a special event license through the city similar to what Chris was precisely talking about okay and so just just want to get that clear the the line between the park and what's the back of the armory is there going to be fencing did you talk about earlier about fencing so all along the perimeter of the park there is fencing that area actually and it's it's hard at this distance but that area is open not directly into the park but you could take a left and get over to the Howard street cul-de-sac so you could area two you could come out you could pass through there not get into the park is that's fenced but walk there's a little corridor on the backside of the armory they could bring you out to the Howard street cul-de-sac and then you could get on the street so there's some bike racks back there that's somewhat of a back alley it'll be a pretty back alley but a back alley nonetheless so we don't anticipate high volumes there at all so is it fair to say then that most circulation is going to be on the other side of the armory closer to the entertainment um absolutely just just given the sort of barriers there are absolutely we anticipate virtually all circulation yeah between what we're calling armory square which is the piece on the left in the plaza will be between the armory and the and the entertainment block building seven area six um you talk about robings security personnel what's a time frame or schedule when folks are out there jason if you could speak to how do you do that so in the plaza area there will be three security 24 seven basically so the one fixed post at the top of the area one that we spoke about and then two patrols that are just constantly going around the plaza if there's an issue they respond to it and go back around through their patrols it would just seem to me that i mean you benefit i think in some respects from having kind of choke points or narrow points but obviously the cul-de-sac in that exit at the end on the union street seem a little more wide open where you might be more prone to find somebody trying to walk off property with a beverage so yeah when the area one is going to be a much higher traffic area because main streets right there if you come outside of area six on the union street right there is not a whole lot going on to go to so it's going to be a lot lower traffic volume so that's why we thought the roving patrols would be a better bet than posting somebody there who's really not doing a whole lot we feel that to the extent that there were issues um on union street that that the issue on how it is more could be inadvertent and that's why we're really making an intense effort to make clear the delineation and have a fixed security post so people don't wander on the union street side it would really be more intentional because there's really nowhere to go if you're if you're going out out that side so we think it because it's really a low volume issue we can control it through the roving security and surveillance and signage the busier map which i brought up is what we are proposing now this isn't a specific event this is a sample event but how we would deal with higher volume events ticketed events concerts activations of the plaza where it's not just your day to day folks from inside the casino decided to walk out and and you know have a smoke in the smoking area or watch something on the screen while finishing their drink or walk across the top of this is where we're really activating the plaza potentially hundreds of people you'll see a lot of enhancements here primarily the enhancements involved perimeter fencing for that event as well as event security you'll see the stars depending on where the events taking place we would really surround the activation with a combination of of perimeter delineation and security personnel to ensure that we don't have folks with that volume spreading out into public areas or and that they're incident free would that be like the velvet uh bank teller type um or what what do you mean by fencing it really depends on the kind of event it could be the velvet ropes or it could be pedestrian barricade it's just if it's concert most likely the pedestrian barricade if it's more of watching the game probably than the velvet rope so it just depends on the event could you explain what a pedestrian barricade is so the pedestrian barricade are the steel kind of bike rack looking barricades they're about eight feet in length and a little heavier connect each other on yeah correct and just the final piece is that we take training of our employees very seriously we have a very comprehensive program to ensure that not only are we properly carting people but that we're looking for signs of intoxication and that's going to be whether it be in the plaza or in the building the culture that we set on property is one of responsible service and consumption of alcohol and that culture will will spread both indoors outdoors and I think um I you know one one comment um Anthony here today I think made to Paul and Ed and some of our discussions around you know conditions and monitoring and he said don't worry don't worry if there's issues we're going to shut it down before you ever have to shut us down because that's one I think he mentioned that his name is on every as the manager on every license area so he's a little bit concerned but the culture that our company sets around ensuring that we have a safe and responsible environment we take it very seriously and we're confident that we can do that activate the plaza and and activate downtown in a way that is responsible and creates a great experience and and if we have issues will independently either pull back or or change the approach before we ever have to have any enforcement issues with that if there are any questions any one of us are happy to address when you mentioned plastic cups are we talking disposable or the reusable so it's a recyclable plastic cup that we're actually switching for when we do our cutoff period after 1 1 a.m. we switch to a plastic cup so we know at 2 a.m. when we stop our service we know it's actually alcohol in the glass and not a non-alcoholic beverage right so so if somebody were to leave the property they would have a this is it would be quite obvious that this is a reusable not a disposable they can't just throw it away I mean they could but it's it's not that it's not more it's not a souvenir type glass at all it's more of a there is a logo on it but it's very right it's not something you would reuse a couple of times if you probably washed it once it wouldn't hold up in addition but it it'll be clear that it's an MGM Springfield cup because it'll have a gold line on it okay thank you I I have a question that's more directed to director Pedro de Andorra Paul what um understanding all the specifics of the license uh now they plan to treat outdoor events how do they plan to treat service during two to four what type of training are we doing with our gaming agents or with the you know combined msp and spd units so that they're aware of all of the issues circumstances that may arise during the execution of some of these events sure so um I was just looking around to see if director band was present but I think oh he is present there he is back um so we've had conversations about this our gaming agents are sort of the front line enforcement people for us and the abcc at our locations so we will depending upon the conditions on the license in the areas then we'll work with our gaming agents to figure out how to work on enforcement and they also do in addition to unraged drinking they also have responsibilities at the particular designated uh beverage areas our taps being secured at the appropriate times how is liquor stored so they they have a in addition to the gaming responsibilities they have they have a whole another set of beverage responsibilities and I think um I remember I think we had one or two issues early on at ppc on unsecured liquor um so that was an issue that was discovered by our gaming agents um our g eu folks our gaming enforcement our state police and springfield police traditional law enforcement um authority also so underage drinking obviously is a crime providing uh alcohol to a minor is a crime um so those were things that could be investigated we have the regulatory component with our gaming agents we have the criminal component with the g eu part so that would be the role in which those two entities would play and can I just mention the abcc agent because you you mentioned as well so I'll remind everybody that we fund the gaming monies fund one abcc agent who has been stationed mostly at plain ridge for all those eventualities that you that you spoke about and um we'll probably go to mgm springfield and essentially for the better part of the the the opening months is my is my guess will eventually float between three properties but just to reference there's 10 agents at the abcc for the state as a whole so then the amount of alcohol supervision that's dedicated for these casinos is substantial not just because it's leveraged with our gaming agents and and and the g eu people and you know of course the um security and surveillance um on events and whatnot but because there's a dedicated agent to the from the abcc as well that's correct thank you for reminding me and commissioners just want to mention one thing that uh came to mind when I first walked the site with the mgm staff which was I think I was more familiar with outdoor events that had set perimeters and usually a much smaller obviously if you go down to the greenway here trillium has a a space trillium brewery has lunges yeah exactly it has a set outdoor perimeter so we had that discussion about you know could you sort of harden this perimeter with some type of whether it was the uh and I did this thing which we developed rope or the the bike racks and uh it's specifically and I think they're right there are a couple of natural choke points that seem to sort of define define a flow itself but if you look at the bottom Howard street the cul-de-sac there is sort of the big open area and one that might be the most or that area area one might be the most used area what I learned and maybe the mgm folks can comment on this is from a sort of life and safety issue having and there are a set of there are a set of major doors across the patio there to the casino area that having uh even things like velvet ropes or any type of barricades and in a area where you might have to do a could potentially have to do a mass evacuation of the building presents substantial challenges so I think what I heard from the folks is they're trying to blend that life and safety issue with the alcohol oversight issue and that's where the ballard the planting and then eventually the permanent security officer come in but I just want to make sure that that was the issue I took away from those conversations that's right we explored really every option we could to try to add delineation and perimeter and and when we explored trying to to use chains or other items on that Howard street we did run into the issue of we have I think building capacities generally in the fourteen to fifteen thousand persons range and so from a life safety evacuation standpoint that basically areas one and six if if you had to flow out of the casino through those main doors those would be the primary points of egress into to safer areas and and adding restrictions around those could create significant issues with that that volume of flow and so we had to get creative around how would you how do you really delineate that border but not negatively impact and frankly we would have to restudy the entire life safety evacuation program if we were to put harder barriers in those two areas which which and Jason feel free to add anything I missed on that point I think you hit it right on the head just adding any kind of impediment to a mass egress when people are panicking to get out it it's not a good thing to ask you you talked about the plastic cups for the outside spaces is that all the time or just after a certain hour how does that work no there's glass there's no glass allowed on the plaza area it's always going to be in plastic so if I have a glass drink I got at the bar inside and then I want to go outside it'll be switched out how someone says it'll be switch out and how does it happen so the the two doors we do this in theaters so it's a very similar process where we don't allow glass in any of our showrooms our theaters so basically when you're walking out the doors you're going to have you're going to be asked to switch it into a plastic cup and then if we do any service out there when we do our special events um if it's beer it'll be served in an aluminum aluminum can or an aluminum bottle um any liquor will be in a plastic cup so is the id checked again at that transfer point or only the first time they get the drink usually just at the first time as there and there was some discussion I think in my head too about the use of wristbands that people are going to be milling around the property to make it easy to identify that someone's been passing on this plastic cup can you address the feasibility of that particularly if they're going to have to swap a glass cup out anyway well it's certainly so we've talked about it in two two aspects one special events and we've indicated that that's something we would employ in special events due to the high volume uh and the and what we showed on here uh to be really a controlled perimeter with uh security presence it would be really feasible and make sense given the volume to do that once um in kind of your steady-state normal operations um it's it would be much more challenging and impact our customer experience for instance uh to the extent that you have to any time you want to walk outside to go to top golf or um or uh say step out to have a smoke find a way to get a wristband on and it could create one staffing issues for us and also customer experience issues where um it has um uh it's one thing in a special event but we're it has almost a little bit of a amusement park feel if you've got to wear a fluorescent wristband every time you go inside and outside and so from a customer experience standpoint and logistically um we feel that it's it's not it's not feasible uh or necessary to do that given given the other protections we have in place and I don't know if there's anything you want to add uh okay but isn't I mean in terms of experience aside or you know the ambiance aside if they have to swap the cup out anyway how much they're only needing the band if they're going to drink alcohol outside so how much more of an inconvenience is it you can step out and have a smoke and come back in without the band it would only be if you want to be able to drink alcohol outside I think if you have the drink in your hand though and you're walking outside you get it switched out if you're going to smoke you would still how we're not going to know if they're going to smoke or if they're going to talk golf so we would have to literally band everybody and I think from a staffing standpoint positioning people at those doors basically from 10 a.m. till midnight we would need at some points you know three to four employees just to manage the doors I don't know if it's a it would be very clunky because you're going to slow traffic down and then on top of it you have your walkways that are designated you're crossing that walkway and you're you're kind of bottlenecking traffic in and if if I could I think so the bands go to also as I understand the concern kind of identifying minors is that the is that the primary concern that's part of yeah so keep in mind that it's less of an issue on the casino floor because that's controlled and there are no minors on the floor but throughout the remainder of the gaming establishment indoors it's the same issue you can walk around freely with an alcoholic beverage with with adults and minors interacting and we believe that through through education through security and monitoring that we're going to be able to create an environment where minors don't have access to alcohol and so the plaza is really an extension of the remaining indoor areas of of the facility off the gaming floor we're going to have that combination of adults and minors and to to require I guess the extension of that would be then really requiring wristbanding of anyone off of the gaming floor which would create which would again experience wise logistic wise could create create a significant issue so we we feel that based on our experience and other properties and the resources that that we could accomplish it without that and and I think Paul spoke to you in the beginning there's the commission has the ability to condition and to relook at to the extent that we're having issues which we were of course self-reporting we could revisit and look at a different procedure if there are significant issues again we don't anticipate there will be I I actually like and will favor the recommendation I was going to say this later but I'll say now I think creating barriers the whole point of the design of these casinos is to try to activate the plaza to not make it that fortress that old-style casino where they just want you in and want to keep you in the idea of the armory the renovation that the fine concept of these is is about having some activity and I think alcohol is one that will enhance it if we were not to license in this area the alcohol it would act as a barrier I think for towards that activation it's not a dispositive there will still be able to do programs there it's just not going to be the same ability to do the programming that they're that they've been talking about so I generally I favor this I think there's a lot of systems and controls that we can put in place like they have done successfully in the city like they do it here in downtown Boston on a number of different areas that we're very familiar with so I think this would be a good reason to see that activation which is the whole intent of the design and we could always come back and revisit this in terms of hours in terms of controls or or barriers I actually happened to think that some of the existing barriers are a little too restrictive I want it to be more more of a natural flow but I understand that you have to strike a balance between having an area that you can control with you know some monitoring and roving security etc but I I generally favor these these requests other questions or comments yeah I I generally favor the outdoor the outdoor plan is presented I didn't want to go back if we can Mr. Chairman to talk about some of the other spaces that you have license I know we're going to talk about the two to four issue but reading some of the local follow-up to the original presentation laying out a license opportunity for Kringle candle Indian motorcycle just to make sure I'm on the right page it's to dispel the notion that hey you can walk into those places at any time and get a beer it's more that if you guys wanted to have a special event within those spaces that you'd have the opportunity to do that without having to come back for a special license it wouldn't be Kringle candle for a glass of wine at 10 a.m. in the morning I want you to have the event going on but it's not that all of those places will be serving alcohol on a regular daily basis that's correct that's still my understanding that's correct various of the license areas will be activated only on a limited basis on an event basis the you know Kringle candle experience is not going to compete you know tap is right across across from a tap you're going to be able to have a number of beers on tap any cocktail you like they are going to have interact closely with the farmers market and the ice skating rink and so some of the concepts that we've discussed is do you have hot toddies that you can get at the Kringle candle next to the ice skating rink or do you have some some kind of limited boutique craft drinks that are consistent with what they're doing there in the experience that's in the plaza would be out of Kringle armory is going to be on an event basis and so so I think what you're suggesting is right this isn't going to be a full-time full-time bar scene and it's one of the licensed areas there's certain areas that that is one of the primary focus including cap and a center bar but various of the outlets are are more more much more limited and event room in Commissioner Stevens to that point too that was one of the things we discussed early on which was in some of these areas where the alcohol service may be infrequent including it in the license so one it could be part of this discussion and really covered in a comprehensive fashion and to provide MGM with the flexibility to activate it without having to submit a special event permit because while infrequent will probably be somewhat regular and it didn't make sense to go to the latter room no I was just going to say you know obviously at the appropriate time I want to talk about two ideas for putting conditions on the license but we can do that at the appropriate point not relative to the outdoor space relative to the whole to the whole thing liquor license but obviously you know what they're suggesting in planning for the outdoor space is kind unique I mean it's it's it's even though we've had great local examples of where it worked and the other piece being the two to four again these are both kind of unique pieces you know I would suggest that we do kind of a three-month or a 90-day review that will take them from August almost into November when some of the plaza activity may be kind of winding down because it gets a little colder but I also want to have us discuss possibly authorizing the ED to have the ability to suspend a portion of the license not that we're expecting trouble but give them that opportunity to either suspend any part of the license until they can have a chance to modify or review or correct a strategy for compliance so those are both really good ideas presentation I'm looking at your last page here on the training and responsible serving did you want to mention that before we I did cover it briefly commissioner when I was talking about the culture the culture of compliance in our training program so no I'm I'm fine unless there are any yeah I mean I just had a question about techniques for slowing down consumption and kind of the effects of over intoxication you mentioned those two areas and I just just maybe Jason would be the appropriate person I'm not sure to talk about that so some of the techniques first slowing down consumption is strike up a conversation not from coffee or food or something or just slow down the speed of service in general so it's like a 20 minute round time instead of a 10 minute round time so the bartenders and the servers have all these tools at their disposal just need to know how to utilize them which we teach them in this training class and what was the other piece of it the effects of over intoxication dealing with the intoxicated guest I'd be interested in I know those are challenging events so I just was interested in your experience in those areas so the first step of any of it before you give them any alcohol at all is to size them up even when they're coming on property for the first time we're going to have a conversation with them how you doing the night what are your plans where do you want to go so to provide customer service but if they're not answering the questions quite correctly or they're showing they're already intoxicated then we're going to go to our next steps which if it's a food beverage person is to call security and then we get involved and speak to and figure out what we need to do on that next piece and to recognize the science of over intoxication we're looking for that slurred speech the rapid changes in mood just things like that and then that's how they assess it and bring us into the loop and I think it's important to clarify on that piece that while our servers and managers are trained to identify situations of over intoxication they don't engage in that process of shutting shutting folks off that's and Jason could speak to this but they the cocktail server if they they notice if they get a manager a manager observes and they call security in any interaction with the guest in terms of their statement of intoxication or refusal the drink is handled by security and not by not by servers okay I know that at ppc we've been successful um with our um you know working as a team gaming agents uh state police plane bill police as well as security as a force multiplier um and really working getting people into ubers but then actually looking at that event after the fact um okay so we had to put this person in an uber let's go back to the video and and maybe they have identified a bartender who who did over serve and it's a training opportunity and I'm just hopeful that the same thing um will occur it's a larger scale there'll be more incidents I'm very hopeful that that team approach can be successful here yet typically so what happens is security will do a report and cutoffs email to myself then we we actually I sit down with a beverage team the beverage manager and then the employee and we have a coaching session and discuss next steps usually over two three infractions we start moving to actually two infractions we start moving to discipline depending on the infraction um so usually we get ahead of this way before it gets out of hand okay and uh just to one point on the outdoor uh consumption and the security plan surrounding special events on you know speaking to the teamwork um I know it's been discussed that uh you know prior to any special event there'd be a lot of coordination between MGM um and the gaming agents in the GEU to identify you know the anticipated number of of people coming in what that security plan looks like and as a matter of fact I've correct me if I'm wrong but that will be part of the security submission yeah correct right so that again you know this there there's a will be um they've indicated there will be a lot of forethought in terms of planning for security and that will be clearly communicated well in advance um with you know as in a partnership fashion with the GEU with the gaming agency and I'd actually request that as not only part of security submission but as part of the license that there be a staff level approval with the GEU of the whole activation of the plaza area so that we would work obviously in the next month or so together um you know we saw physical surveillance I mean physical barriers we think that could be enhanced keeping in mind life and safety discussions um if there was a surveillance if there was you know for example that back alley the the luxurious back alleys that's been described um you know someone from gaming agents or or state police uh said it might be better to have a camera back there we'd have authority to do that before we gave a final approval for the beverage license in that area I think I'm not looking to put more work but I think that final approval in the the dialogue between now and then could help prevent issues that might just pop up if at the end they followed this whatever model they had there and we found out later on we wanted to add conditions so and that we'd also work with the ABCC person on that also absolutely I was going to make another point about my point about barriers earlier and and that is that you know it's also a responsible gaming aspect to allow people to go outside even if they have a drink halfway and they can finish up to take breaks I think it's an important feature let's not forget that everybody who might be going to the casino is going there to gamble in the first place so I I like the the notion that you they'll be able to walk in and out again depending on what's going on in the plaza and you thought of it accordingly I think it's also an aspect that we should remember I think you probably get the message that we're cautious and concerned and and really do appreciate that you understand that and have worked with our team to to put those safeguards in place we do very much appreciate it and and for the past you know four weeks Mike has asked me so what are you working I said alcohol licensing alcohol licensing so we've been working very closely with with staff and it's been a really great collaboration I know where their concerns and I think we through that collaboration really developed a plan that best serves both us from a business standpoint and and the Commonwealth and the MGC I think we're aligned in making sure it's a really safe and and responsible experience but that serves the underlying purpose of the project I think I think it's also important to know you know we we did get a number of comments through MGC comments and a letter from the mass restaurant association again voicing various concerns you know there there isn't this notion of when you finish drinking someplace else go to MGM because they're the kind of wild wild west and all the rules are thrown out the window you know you guys are still held to the same compliance laws that everybody else in massachusetts is you carry the same liability that every other bar and everybody else does so it's it's it's not that you know you guys don't take that role seriously and we won't take that role seriously but you know my opinion is this is still something new and we want to work with you but obviously be cautious and thoughtful about how we enact it it sounds like we're pretty much have a consensus that this is fine and and but with the caution that everybody's discussing just slightly different perspective sort of unfortunate that da Vinci park I know this is not your responsibility but a part of that ambience having that really nice park there you know especially if there are places to sit I think it would be a natural wish for people it's a natural place for the bid to have events and in the normal just course of wandering around is experiencing this outdoor space it would be kind of unfortunate not to be able to take your glass of wine or your beer and go sit chat you know maybe you can work something out with the city but it seems kind of unfortunate in a way to block that that was my point about the fencing by the way because but but I understand that it's a back of the of the back of the armory but okay so we should we move on then so we clearly have a consensus I think on this one should we move on to the two hours should we take a quick break before we do that I think I think we are ready to reconvene our meeting and we are back on item number four with director Connolly right and when we left off Mr. Chairman I believe the intent was to transition to discussing the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. aspect of the gaming beverage license correct so just as a refresher MGM Springfield is requesting that they be allowed to serve alcohol on the gaming floor between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. that is newly allowed on it based on an amendment that was signed by Governor Baker I believe last July I was surprised when I looked back it's almost been a year to importantly alcohol service between 2 and 4 is only allowed on the gaming floor because a patron must be actively engaged in this is by statute actively engaged in gaming in order to be served so they are requesting those hours for the gaming floor and they do and I'll turn it over to Seth if you don't mind to speak to the plan as to how they will kind of do that reduction from the overall licensed area to just the gaming floor and how they'll maintain security and integrity of the of the gaming floor and alcohol service during that time if I could I mean at the last meeting I believe we walk through the specifics of of the plan and we're happy to revisit any piece but what I what I like to do is update you on some of what we've done since because I think there was a desire by the commission to hear public comments I know you received some we did some work on our end where we spoke with a couple of different stakeholders groups in particular the city of Springfield both the casino oversight committee of the city council as well as the mayor and we did we met with them walk through the plan much like we did with the commission several weeks ago and then took them on site and showed them the limited bars that will be essentially there will be no bars open but the limited ability to have a drink and where you could have it between 2 and 4 a.m. and how that's segregated and controlled and we got really positive feedback in fact anecdotally but based on a conversation with the chair the city council casino oversight who was originally opposed and had drafted an opposition letter after meeting with us and seeing it on site changed his mind and I believe submitted a comment letter to the commission supportive of this of this 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. service the mayor as well was impressed with our approach how it's narrowly tailored and felt that it was important for our success and I believe has also been supportive and through a written submission we also met we convene two meetings with local law enforcement where we invited all surrounding community law enforcement not every community was able to attend but we had two meetings that included members of law enforcement from I don't know the city of Springfield but East Long Meadow Long Meadow Chickabee I believe those are the three and walk through the plan answered had questions and answers and no real concerns were expressed from any of those groups and they appreciated the information. Finally there's been no formal position taken by any of the other agencies they didn't they didn't formally say yes or formally say no that's correct but well the state groups have weighed in state law enforcement came out in opposition to this. So the unions have come out the organizations yes. To be and I don't originally when the law was passed not in not in response to our plan correct that's accurate that was in general before the specifics of your plan were major public and then the final group we spoke to we actually met with some of the local proprietors of some of the more popular bars and restaurants that are neighbors of ours in the downtown and we convene some meetings to walk them through our plan took them on site gave them the opportunity to ask questions which they very much appreciated and expressed no concerns with from a competitive standpoint with us being able to have this narrow exception I believe is my understanding that one one or two of them may have submitted written comments I don't know whether they ended up doing that but we had really productive discussions with with those local proprietors as well to ensure that they didn't feel weren't surprised and didn't feel like it would be unfairly competitive. So unless you have unless you'd like me to I do think we walked through it previously I'm happy to go through it again or if there are specific questions on on the plan and how we would shift from regular service to 2 to 4 a.m our folks here would be happy to address that. I think I think your plan is solid but like any plan it's the implementation that's really important here so I guess my questions were about the word getting out and how you intend to to get that word out and part of it is not just what you say but what you do um those individuals who are in neighboring communities who may say okay bar is closing here it's one o'clock let's go to MGM so we can continue drinking that's a real concern. It was a it was a big concern in in in the in the Plainville with all of the chiefs there the Plainville area and just how you intend to I know I think more importantly than for the plaza but for for this extended drinking period this idea of over intoxication your techniques for slowing down and your initial interaction with folks into entering the building will be critical for public safety so I just wanted to hear a little more about that piece. Sure I think in terms of the kind of get the word out we're not going to affirmatively we're certainly not going to affirmatively advertise hey one of the great things about MGM Springfield is you can come drink until 4 a.m. we what we've said is we're going to be very clear that you know our our bars are closed at the same time as other bars in the community close. I don't we don't plan on having at this point an affirmative kind of public education program around that I think it's going to be gaming customers will when they come they'll they'll understand that oh I so as on gaming I can continue to consume alcoholic beverages until 4 a.m. so it'll be more of a through word of mouth and I think at this at the same time and I'd like to pass it to Jason to address a latter part of the question but the the education in the community around this is not a place to come and continue the party after bars closed will be through word of mouth and experience when when those folks first try to come here for that purpose and realize that's not that's not what we're engaged in so maybe if you could speak to that a little bit Jason. So one of the best things about our property is the open nature of it being able to enter basically from any side around around the property after midnight we closed down eight of our 11 entrances only have three left available so we're looking at the hotel entrance the plaza entrance and the valet slash self-parking entrance so it's a lot easier for us to screen to size up and to speak to all the individuals that are coming on property at that time so we get a lot better sizing up of each person coming through to verify why they're here and if they tell us I just got down my other part I want to come here to party we're going to ask them to to go home and come back another day. So your security will be specifically trained to be aware of this issue this concern because as in you read reading comments comment after comment was it was really about the continuation of the ability to become intoxicated and then get on the roadways so so your security will be specifically trained on this issue and and be looking for those individuals who may be coming to continue their drinking and and being advised that this is just an opportunity for those who are here to to game that's correct what about um I'm sorry so on the other side the people that are wrapping up and leaving the premises via vehicle I mean so that you're going to check people engage them on the way in what about the process on the way out because there were some concerns raised particularly 4 a.m departure time coinciding with people who want to work very similar exit process as well of course when they leave the food and beverage establishment or wherever they were drinking they're they're going to do their size of process on the way out and if there's an issue notify security again and then if we see them going up the door we'll engage them hey have a good night and then at that point we we see there's an issue like how about a ride share how about another way home can you call a friend do you have a designated driver or if they just blow us off we have the GEU on site that they can intervene right then and there and assist us on that and I think that's a really important point while we take you know responsibility for and and really engaging in that process I think that's where the partnership with the gaming enforcement unit on site is going to be really critical I mean there are very few places where patrons are going to be consuming alcohol and literally to walk out the door of their car they're going to have to walk by a trooper that's going to be a disincentive and a significant I think tool that we have it's going to discourage intoxicated driving because we will have law enforcement right there on site and we can work very closely with with the gaming enforcement unit to ensure that that there's safe safe conduct going on especially at that hour is there anything that you've analyzed or projected relative to who might be those patrons at those hours more likely to be whether staying at the hotel or another a nearby hotel the no no formal analysis but I think maybe Anthony if you could Anthony's been operating casinos for for quite some time and if you could speak to it generally that the customers at that hour and especially those gaming who would be eligible for for extended service yeah typically the people gaming at this type of hour would be a convention guest who are usually staying in a hotel either our hotel or they would be in a local hotel typical locals technically typically don't stay that late I mean Springfield naturally shuts down at 9 p.m. as it is I think they're used to shutting down at 2 a.m. because that's when all the bars close so I think typically it'd be a convention guest or hotel guest because they usually have fun have a great time and then go to the room or jump in a ride share and go back to the Sheridan which is right down the street that's what we're anticipating and I've anticipated over the last 19 years working in Mississippi Las Vegas did you see some of the shift workers also I know in Atlantic City the group of individuals that worked till midnight and it could be nurses you know all kinds of shift workers that would not even come in until say one o'clock and like like the fact that they had the opportunity to to game or to and to have a cocktail in those hours where there's typically nothing going on I know that was you know some somewhat of a phenomenon is the shift workers coming in yeah typically in the markets I've worked I haven't seen a lot of that because we're a more of a resort we charge a premium at price and late night our table games it's you know our limits are usually a little bit elevated so I don't I typically haven't seen that I know maybe in Atlantic City it was a little bit more in tune but here I mean I don't envision that yeah I don't I don't see it being and another thing is our employees aren't going to be allowed to come in we have certain restrictions on so my employees in food and beverage they're not going to be allowed back on property to enjoy until two hours after their shift which by then the shift will be over the service will be over okay since you mentioned when would you have you determine whether or at what time might you lower the limits on on bed on beds at what point in in the in the evening or and if it's a trade secret you can tell me later I doubt that it is we'll go with that but it could be that none of us here no yeah yeah I mean there are folks in the company that would be able to speak to that better I think it's really contextual it's with the technology it's it's less of an issue to make those changes because it's all digital with with our visual limits so I think it'll depend on day of the week seasonal who's in town if a large convention is town and it is really it's really um supply and demand we're really just trying to manage capacity on the tables and if we can if we can justify a rate increase you know we'll do that just to you know sort of thin out the crowd a little bit so I think case by case I know that and when I read the reports from ppc that there are times when somebody's inebriated and somebody arranges for a ride home either it's security your ppc because security or rge you folks is that who runs that program is that a formal program and who does that please say you're nodding or maybe bruce or maybe somebody who knows but it's just sort of an informal if somebody needs it it's not a you don't have a standing deal with uber or something to be on call or anything I think having having having some such capacity in place maybe even being willing to pay for the ride you know would be another nice kind of assurance we commissioners zuniga and I were at a meeting with Lindsay Tucker who is the associate commissioner of the department of public health and the co-chair of the public health trust fund executive committee along with commissioner zuniga and she brought up that what was somewhat her but also implied department of public health position on this and commissioner zuniga asked her if there was any she was predisposed against it as you might imagine but she she in answer to mr zuniga's questions said yes there was data on this that she thought would be helpful or at least we thought would be helpful and we asked her to send it and we've all had a chance to look at it but some of it was quite lengthy and I asked commissioner zuniga if he would be willing to speak to what she sent so everybody gets a complete battery more than happy to and please tell me if I'm going into too much detail but there was a lot of there were a lot of links and attachments in the email that that she forwarded I included I asked the staff to include what I thought was the most relevant I'll speak to them as much as I can in a summary level one of the attachments that they sent was a study by somebody named hawn and others about the increasing hours of sale it was a study of studies essentially and that's they were looking at studies throughout the world really that looked at when jurisdictions increased the hours of sale at different times what's very relevant and different from what we're considering here is countries or jurisdictions that increased hours throughout the country which is not what's happening in in in my opinion at least in here there's a very specific and narrow question for us but I'll speak to it very general generally because I think it's also it's also important there were obviously some harms that came on these some of these studies around the world for increasing hours in serving for more than two hours and they were inconclusive harms or effects when the increase was for two hours or less which I find very just serendipitous really because what we're considering here is the two hour mark or two hour increase nonetheless these as I mentioned before these increases were throughout entire jurisdictions and it occurred to me when I was reading this study of studies that that would be relevant if the if say the legislature was thinking about increasing hours throughout the state as opposed to just at the casino floor there there's another study that I also included in the packet which I thought was most interesting it's from the Journal of Health Economics and they looked at the the when when a casino is introduced in a jurisdiction they tracked what's called ARFA or alcohol related fatalities and the authors were able to ascertain that ARFAs go down actually ARFAs go up fatalities fatalities go up when a casino is introduced but only on rural counties they actually go down on populous counties which I think it was just not what what they intend what the DPH intended when they were submitting their comments at least and they have very much an example that is very relevant in that study and that is in Milwaukee the the Milwaukee County population 936,000 versus SOC County Wisconsin population 17,000 ARFAs went up in the rural county fatalities went went went up but they actually went down in in Milwaukee County again it's a counterintuitive result that the the authors hypothesized that in rural counties people drive longer for more hours or more more miles while intoxicated and that that that that makes fatalities go up but there's a substitution effect they theorize when they go when we're analyzing the populous counties in which people are doing something else when a casino comes in as opposed to just just drinking now what's interesting here is not only that a counterintuitive result but the fact that at least in very rough numbers Hamden County is a medium-sized county is not rural but it's not at least as populous as the example in the study of that I mentioned earlier of Milwaukee County so I I don't know how that cuts except that it's it's seemingly in the middle I actually asked that question of the people from BSAS the Bureau of Substance Abuse who initially forwarded this this study the other those were the main obviously this might not Middlesex County is much more populous than than it's maybe two million people and but we're not considering that at this point I can answer any questions if anybody has no thank you if I could add one point that's somewhat relevant that I think might be of interest to the Commission and Anthony could speak to this but on the substitution effect one thing that's unique about casinos versus say other establishment establishments where you can consume alcohol at the same time because we're generally giving the alcohol away and what that means is that we're controlling much more carefully how much and how frequently you're getting it because we're spending millions and millions of dollars in giving this away versus an establishment that's selling it and is incentivized to the frequency and the volume to increase and what what is the if it's okay disclosing how much how much money do you spend in it's million tens of millions of dollars in hard cost that gets charged back to the casino but but we also you know typically in a bar it's an ounce and a half pour on the casino floor at seven eighths of an ounce so you have to have multiple drinks to even equal to one drink at a of a typical retail establishment and what's the typical round time that so typically it's it's a 20 minute round time on a graveyard shift with a limited staff it actually goes closer to a 30 minute round time you know I you reminded me of another main point that I wanted to mention around the first study of studies and that is that the authors also point out very importantly that the effects of regulation in those expansions was was not analyzed in those studies which I think is the most relevant piece that we were considering here because in countries where they expanded the hours it was it was throughout but people already had those licensures or those licenses and and have the incentives that you allude to to sell more and faster we have the ability as as commissioner Stevens was saying earlier to limit condition look at however many for however many days let's say or period of time and see how it what happens what kind of person is engaging in in both gambling and drinking at that what kind of customer at that time what's the volume we've had some of the comments as to you know the notion that there will be an inflow of people or an output of people at that time I find hard to substantiate just on the logic that you know there's extended hours so it's another point that I wanted to make thank you that was really helpful other questions thoughts just a just a quick question because obviously during this two to four time frame you're only serving people who are actively gaming do your table game dealers go through any type of training to also identify somebody who's sitting right across from them might be intoxicated or over served yeah typically a take a table game dealer will notify the cocktail waitress because there could be a shift change it could be a break so it's all it could be a new person coming on that hasn't served them yet so typically the dealers are the first to identify they actually identify with the pit boss the pit boss will then notify the beverage manager who does make that assumption and then we move to the security cutoff point if that happens and they are all going to be going through a game sense training right that's your employees that's correct Seth I had a question that in a way is probably more relevant when this was in the legislature than now but what's the what's the argument why is it why does it make sense to to single out people who are gaming for the ability to drink for another couple hours as opposed to watching a west coast baseball game or being in a late night movie theater what's the argument on which this notion was sold I can't I can't speak to the I can't speak to the argument on which it was sold because we weren't selling it but I think the what I can't speak to is that it's an industry issue you heard from from us before that Detroit is the only other property in our entire portfolio that does not have 24 7 alcohol service and so folks are used to going to casinos throughout the country and having an experience where they can game and consume alcohol without without a cutoff hour and so it's really a it's really a competitive it's industry competition it's ensuring consistent experience through as much as we can throughout industry properties and so I think it's it's not that a someone gaming is any there's something about the experience that's any that's different from watching a game where where you'd like to have someone drinking it's just where the jurisdictions that that started gaming it's always been gone hand in hand with extended service and to stay competitive and to deliver the experience that are our customers expect we want to be as competitive as possible and remind me it Connecticut does not right Connecticut stops it to remind me the other just nearby jurisdictions that that's my understanding that Connecticut currently stops it to and Rhode Island I don't anybody know I don't know Rhode Island do you know Lisa okay other other thoughts we probably ought to take this one as a separate matter so does someone want to present a motion on the the only other thing I think Commissioner Stevens had a thought about either given whether it's myself or director Conley or both of us just sort of this emergency authority as as a condition to whatever you decide and I would just suggest that that emergency authority would then you know require to come back at the next public meeting and obviously report whatever we did let's let if I can be so presumptuous commissioner Stevens I think you made two suggestions one was that we give the executive director the authority to intervene on any of the approval that we give here on a real-time basis and then to report and then the second was that there be some quite rigorous for the sake of discussion three months out quite rigorous analysis of the consequences of these decisions so let's say on the two to four issue that those two things are preconditions if we're if we do go forward on the on the two to four issue that it would have those two preconditions that okay with everybody did I characterize that accurately yeah I mean the two to four is part of the gaming alcohol license my suggestion or conditions on the license would extend to the full to every single license but since we're going to separate we're going to vote on the two to four separately it would it would be covered under your two broader conditions yes okay do somebody want to have a motion on the two to four issue well I can I can take a position if that's if that's helpful for the discussion I am willing to go along with with with the request with those with those conditions I'll mention that something that I updated you all in a prior meeting which I would think would operate here very much and that is the amount of commitment that your company is making towards the game sense program which includes having discussions empowering your employees to have discussions around gambling for a long time which I would put same here you know engaging a lot of alcohol while gaming for a long time what I've seen of your colleagues notably in Alan Feldman is this this real commitment and empowerment that I find is very helpful in this this discussion in there's there's there's powerful incentives for those employees to have those discussions and I would be looking for those kinds of signs and evidence in in in in our own property here as as we continue with with with these conditions with that's that's my predisposition okay well let's go let's just do it by predisposition yeah I'd be inclined to to allow this with the commitment I mean my issue really is public safety and and I really was looking for and I think I heard a commitment to to pay attention to this issue which means you know the training of of staff collaborative working environment with the gaming enforcement unit which includes you know our gaming gaming agents as well as the security staff so I think with with all of these safeguards in place and and the commitment I'm I'm inclined and again I do like the the idea of giving our executive director immediate authority and and the and the three-month rigorous let's make sure that we're not having a problem with public safety commissioner Cameron if I if I can I to extent it wasn't clear and part of the reason I'm here is because it's a very serious topic and you absolutely have our commitment I would I would if you if not required I would I would ask to come back after 90 days and collectively give a give a report card on how we did and it's not just our job we're gonna rely on on your team as well to help us with these difficult issues and as I would welcome you to keep us on a short leash that's how I've envisioned keeping the team on a short leash because we view this very seriously and I've got an answer to folks within the company if we do not manage this well great thank you thank you I do not in any way question the commitment of MGM in this regard or in anything you've come in front of us so far but I have to say on balance the public safety concerns and the concerns about people gaming into the night and Kevin continued alcohol access on balance I am just not convinced that at this point the Commonwealth it's in the best interest of the Commonwealth to extend from two to four I would not be in favor of the extension I'm like my colleagues I mean you know the the comments and questions that were raised to us are around the issues of public safety I applaud the fact that you did reach out to the you know not only the host community but the surrounding community I'm disappointed that you didn't get 100 percent participation or engagement you know that said I do have a level of comfort in terms of the procedures in the training that you're willing to provide and offer however you know I think you know the conditions I want to recommend will might quickly in that if this does not go off well because I think we're kind of both on the hook to make sure this succeeds so I'm predisposed to support the two to four a.m. service continuation that is a majority I'm a 51 49 on this I originally I would have thought but this is crazy idea and frankly I think it's very peculiar that the legislature chose to single out this particular cohort is being able to drink for an extra two hours even if there's any if there's any cohort you were going to single out this would have been the last one I would have thought you would have singled out that is people who are who are gambling I have on the other hand which I think I think the end of this paragraph I'm gonna gonna be this is the 51 that I've learned in my years here that casino is a very stupid place to be a criminal and is probably the safest place to drink in Massachusetts you know it's more regulated and more attended to and more trackable than probably any place there possibly is so I think at the very end of the day I very marginally would go along with this as I sort of would tend to any time give people more freedom to do what they want in a properly supervised environment so I guess that means as we have about a four to one on so I think we could lump it all into one we have that issue was is clearly a consensus majority so maybe we could lump it into a single motion to adopt the plan with with the attendant conditions so is this I just want to be clear are you not talking about voting on the full license with the caveat you've just discussed on the two to four a.m. the full right the full license as presented with that is with the outdoor schema and with the extension and drinking hours with the conditions that you've already established plus the two conditions that commissioner step and if I could just ask for one more condition which is I think I discussed it a little bit on the outdoor plaza I just like staff to have the ability maybe through me to do one final walkthrough before the property opens make sure the gaming agent state police abcc are all fine with the eventual plan as it ends up because I the scheme the diagram looks fine but they're working hard and I want to make sure whatever it is matches whatever the commission's expectations are so that would just be one additional item I think that's appropriate to yeah all right well commissioner step do you want to articulate a motion sure uh mr. chairman I'd move that the commission approve the gaming alcohol license for MGM spring field as provided in the packet with consideration of the conditions already presented to us by director connelly in addition the following conditions one that this commission review the alcohol license 90 days after the opening of MGM spring field that we afford the executive director the opportunity to review the outdoor service plan with commission staff and our license see prior to opening and that this commission authorize the executive director to suspend any portion of the license or modify any staffing or procedures of the license for compliance and report back to the full commission at the next convenient meeting well said second second is it further discussion on favor signify by saying I I posed okay we didn't give you a choice but so you're I guess you're at an A on this one right um so that motion passes four to one two four and a half to a half thank you all right thank you sets can get back to work right mr. chairman just in terms of process we have item 5a which has some guests who have traveled the glpi legal issues and then the rest I think are are mainly internal it feels like you probably want to get something to eat at some point but potentially if we could hang in there and do the one issue with our guests we could let them make whatever afternoon travel plans they have and then get something to eat and clean up afterwards yeah I mean I do maybe just go on through because I think the other things are pretty pretty if you want to do that let's do glpi and then we'll talk about whether see what time it is see what time it is yeah all right so the we'll welcome the folks from glpi and attendant lawyers and what have you attorney grossman good afternoon mr. chairman commissioners we're here before you on the transfer of interest matter involving glpi and penn national gaming there is a letter in your packet that's been submitted by the parties outlining the issue and as it mentions today we're here on a very narrow issue but just to kind of tee things up and then I'll turn it over to the petitioners to introduce the whole lineup and run through the issues I thought I would give you a brief overview of what we're here for today and the transfer of interest process in general we can obviously move quickly through any parts that aren't entirely useful at the moment but just to kick things off I would just mention that the commission as you know has been notified that there is a proposed transaction in which the premises of the gaming establishment comprising plain ridge park casino owned by plain ridge gaming and redevelopment LLC which is our gaming licensee and a subsidiary of penn national gaming will be transferred to an entity owned by gaming and leisure properties incorporated which is known as glpi glpi is a publicly traded reet and the parties of course are here today to more fully explain any details of the transaction itself chapter 23 k expressly allows for transfers of interest and it discusses it in a number of areas the commission has crafted regulations which more fully set out the regulatory framework for which a transfer of interest is processed by us that's in sections 116.08 through 116.10 in essence the process is really designed to do two things it's first designed to ensure that the commission has an opportunity to determine whether the transfer will result in any new qualifiers and ensure that they are able to go through the rfa one suitability process to give the commission and the i e b time to conduct an investigation and ultimately for the commission to determine the suitability of any new qualifiers and secondly it's designed to determine whether the transfer will result in any change of control over the gaming license such that the quality of the operation or any agreements host and surrounding community or otherwise will be affected in any way by the transfer today we're here on the request of the parties to make two initial legal determinations in advance of the decision that will be upcoming before you in approximately a month that has to do deal with the interim authorization of the deal that will be presented to you so we'll go through the deal in much more detail in about a month but we're here on just these two preliminary matters the first preliminary matter pertains to the terms of the lease that will result from the transaction and the second pertains to the certain terms of the trust agreement and i don't want to steal their thunder so i'm not going to get into the particulars but they will explain to you exactly what they are as a general matter i can represent to you that the legal department supports and i believe the i e b as well supports the proposal and the legal interpretations that will be forwarded to you here today by the petitioners and before we turn things over i thought it might be helpful just to quickly run through the law of transfers of interest if that would be helpful we'll obviously need to go through it in a little more detail before the next hearing but just to help calibrate where we are in the process here today i can just run through some of the particulars that govern transfers of interest and they provide essentially as follows that no person can transfer a gaming license or a gaming establishment or any associated structure real property premises or facility without notification to the i e b and subsequent approval by a majority of the commission the commission must require that anyone with a financial interest in a gaming establishment be qualified for licensure by meeting the criteria that's outlined in sections 12 and 16 of chapter 23 k the transfer is also subject to commission regulation section 129.01 which essentially looks at whether the transfer will result in any change of control over the gaming license and if there is such a change the transfer is essentially required to agree to assume all of the existing obligations for the category two licensee there is a law in place that says that there can be no transfer of the gaming license for the first five years from the date of issuance unless there are certain enumerated circumstances in play that's not the case here the gaming license is not being transferred just the gaming establishment a change of control itself and this is a determination the commission will be called upon to make eventually is defined in the regulation to mean a transfer of interest which directly or indirectly results in a person obtaining greater than 50 ownership in a gaming licensee or which results in or is likely to result in significant change to the management or operation of a gaming license for what it's worth the present situation does not appear to involve any such change of control this appears to be a straight real estate type transaction whenever a person contracts to transfer any property relating to an ongoing gaming establishment as opposed to an open market transfer under circumstances which require that the transferee be deemed suitable as is the case in this particular situation the contract shall not specify a closing or settlement date which is earlier than 121 days after the submission of a completed rfa-1 application this provision is in place to allow the IEB and the commission adequate time to investigate at least on a preliminary basis the suitability and overall suitability of the transaction and the transferee the rfa-1 application is required to be accompanied by a fully executed and approved trust agreement and that's one of the issues that we're here for today to have a look at the trust agreement the trust is a vehicle that is designed to effectuate a clean separation of a transferee that is ultimately possibly deemed unsuitable from any interest in the gaming license or in a gaming establishment if that scenario should arise that's why we have the trust the commission is required to hold a hearing and render a decision on what is referred to as interim authorization that's the next step in the process after today if the commission grants interim authorization the closing or settlement of the deal may occur the interim authorization process was included in the process in recognition that the full suitability investigation may take some time to fully complete so as not to keep the whole transaction in a holding pattern this process this interim authorization process is designed to allow the deal to close with essentially only a preliminary finding of suitability and finding of the overall assessment of the transaction having been completed but once that is allowed if it is allowed the commission may at any time after that order all interest subject to the transaction to be moved into the trust if there exists reasonable cause to believe that the proposed transferee may be found unsuitable if a prospective transferee fails or refuses to transfer property into the trust they will be deemed to be unsuitable when it comes to the ultimate decision there are just a couple of quick principles that I would throw out there just to provide a full understanding of these transfers of interest and they are that the commission may place any additional conditions or restrictions on a transfer that the commission deems suitable the commission shall reject a gaming license transfer or transfer of interest in the game establishment to any unsuitable person the commission shall not approve of any transfer that would result in the transferee having a financial interest in more than one gaming license issued by the commission the commission may reject a transfer if the commission considers the transfer unsuitable and alternatively stated and finally the commission may reject any proposed transfer that in the opinion of the commission would be disadvantageous to the interest of the common law and we define disadvantageous to the interest to include such things as not meeting the suitability standards not complying with any particular law or regulation that is overseen by the commission and that they don't meet section 12109 relative to the change of control so that's essentially an abridged version of the rules that govern the transfer of interest in the process as you can see we're just in advance of the interim authorization which again will be coming back before you in about a month's time miss lilios miss blue and I are all available to take any questions as this progresses at the moment I though if there are no questions I thought I'd just turn it over to attorney albano who represents the parties and he can certainly introduce the team and then walk you through the proposal I can just jump in by way of introduction that we have chris rogers that I think many of you have not all of you have met before he's vice president and deputy general counsel for penn national and with him is brandon more senior vp general counsel and secretary for glpi traveling with them today is melissa ferulo who is the director of licensing and legal affairs for glpi and of course mr albano local council for both parties for purposes of this transaction good morning mr chairman commissioners good morning john albano good afternoon is it afternoon afternoon sorry about it first I on behalf of both of the applicants all of the applicants I wanted to thank the commission for taking the time to address these two specific issues relating to the proposed transfer it's greatly appreciated that you've made the time to hear us on that as as mr grossman explained the two specific issues are first under the proposed transaction the property will be sold to a subsidiary of glpi and then we'll be leased back to the licensee the first issue is how long does that lease have to be as a matter of law under chapter 23k that's the first issue I address that the second issue as mr grossman mentioned is related to the terms of the trust that are required under the interim authorization regulations which as he explained are meant to ensure that if a for lack of a better term problem arises there can be a clear separation between the transferee and the control of the real estate or in other instances the license and and we believe as i'll explain that the trust we have proposed does effectively address both the letter and spirit of those regulations I I did think we thought together actually that subject to the commission's desires of course that because this is the first time we've come before you on this and because we're going to be addressing two pretty specific issues that it might be helpful in fact it might avoid you feeling frustrated during my presentation of these two issues if you heard a bit about the overall transaction and had an opportunity to ask any questions about that just from sort of a very high level understanding that we will be back to you know drill down in as much detail as anyone desires in just a matter of weeks if if that would be helpful then what I'd propose is that I turn it over to first to Mr. Rogers and then to to Mr. Moore for that overview that's a drill very well thank you my name is Chris Rogers I'm the deputy general counsel at Penn National um so this all started about a year and a half ago when Penn received a letter from Pinnacle suggesting that the two companies combined upon receded that letter we began a almost year-long process of negotiating with Pinnacle on a potential transaction and what would that look like you might be curious why it took a year there was a couple of reasons one we had to agree on valuation and who would be the acquirer and we ultimately settled that Penn would be the acquirer in the transaction and we settled on evaluation that included not only a cash component for their stockholders but also an equity component and the rationale for that was one to to permit Penn to reduce the amount of debt it would need on order to complete the financing but also to permit the Pinnacle shareholders to participate in the upside of the combined company through equity and the combined Penn entity the other the other reason why it took a while to get the deal done is that we knew that there would be required divestitures in connection with the transaction so in Ohio and Indiana there are statutory limits on the number of licenses and we knew that we'd be required to divestive one in both of those jurisdictions we also knew that both Penn and Pinnacle had strong presences in Kansas City and St. Louis and although there was not a statutory limitation on the number of licenses we knew that the FTC would be interested in that from a anti-competitive standpoint and we decided at the outset that we would do some divestitures in those two markets as well we contacted Boyd Gaming Corporation a very well regarded regional gaming operator who's been licensed in a number of different jurisdictions as our as our preferred divestiture partner and we agreed with them early that they would buy the operations of four of the casinos currently operated by Pinnacle one in Kansas City one in St. Louis one in Indiana and one in Ohio so that brings us to how GLPI gets into the story so GLPI is a REIT that was spun off from Penn in 2013 and in connection with that spinoff Penn contributed the real estate for substantially all of its all of its properties to GLPI and entered into a long-term master lease with GLPI pursuant to which Penn leases those properties to conduct gaming operations since the spinoff GLPI did its own transaction with Pinnacle in which it acquired all of the real substantially all the real estate from Pinnacle and entered into a separate lease with Pinnacle which we call the Pinnacle master lease this was all prior to the to the merger discussions correct correct so when Penn did the spinoff we did not yet have the license for for Plain Ridge and so it was not included as part of what was given to GLPI and Penn owned the real estate and has owned the real estate since opening so because we were required to do divestitures the properties being divested were were part of the Pinnacle master lease with GLPI so they have one lease that covers multiple properties and we would need to do an amendment to remove those properties out of the lease and GLPI would enter into a new lease with boy gaming with with respect to those four properties so we started to talk to GLPI about how that would work and how we could do the amendment to the lease and the divestitures and at that time we came to the conclusion that we thought it made sense to to add Plain Ridge Park into the Pinnacle master lease and sell the real estate to GLPI now the advantage of doing that is that we received 250 or will receive 250 million dollars of proceeds for the real estate that we can then use to fund the transaction with Pinnacle so it allowed us to reduce the amount of debt we would otherwise incur in the transaction so because of that we ended up doing agreeing to a transaction in December of last year that involved four publicly traded companies so in addition to Penn and Pinnacle it also involved Boyd and GLPI and what was unique about this deal is when it was announced all four companies had their stock trade higher I mean it was uniformly applauded by by the market and really was a win-win for everyone for for Penn it really is a tremendous opportunity for us increase our scale we were able to get access into new markets where we currently don't have a presence and we're able to get some additional customers into our database that we think would allow us to more effectively compete with some of our competitors so as for what it means to Massachusetts the impact will be minimal from an operations standpoint Penn will continue to be the operator the real estate at Plain Ridge Park will be owned by GLPI and will be leased to PIN as part of a master lease that includes the other properties that are being acquired from Pinnacle and the advantage from a PIN perspective is we think this transaction really does give us the size and scale to more effectively compete with the Caesars, MGMs, the wins of the world while also giving us a much stronger balance sheet with a company that has more geographic diversity and a larger cash flow so with that I'll turn it over to Brandon to sort of explain a little bit more detail about GLPI. Good afternoon I guess first I'd like to thank you for delaying your lunch as a person who values their lunch I appreciate that second I just want you to know you know we have a long way to go but working with your staff has been fantastic I mean everybody here has been very helpful to us in these nuanced issues and helping us work through this given the fact that we're new to this jurisdiction we very much appreciate that. This is a little bit odd because we haven't had an opportunity to tell you who we are and why we're involved too much before bringing in front of you a couple of very nuanced issues that impact our business so I'll just take a couple of minutes and tell you a little bit about GLPI and if you have any questions I'm happy to get into more detail but I think that probably will come at some subsequent hearings but as Chris mentioned you know we're a publicly traded real estate investment trust we started with the Penn properties we purchased a casino outside of St. Louis in Illinois shortly after the spin out and then we purchased the Pinnacle assets after that we purchased a casino outside of Pittsburgh and we're currently under agreements not only with Penn to buy two additional casinos in this transaction but we recently announced a transaction to buy the real estate portfolio of Tropicana entertainment so we're working on that transaction as well so so we've broadened the scope and since then there have been a couple of competitors come out so since while we were the first gaming focused REIT obviously Caesars reorganized their business and came out spun out of a bankruptcy a REIT and MGM did a similar transaction although for much different reasons where they have sort of a captively held but separated REIT so the presence of REITs and gaming is becoming more prolific with each and every transaction that occurs in the gaming space for us we're a passive landlord meaning that we don't get involved in the operations of our tenants our REITs are triple net REITs meaning that the tenants are responsible for not only the property operation but the maintenance the insurance the real estate taxes the whole nine yards so we are really not involved in the day-to-day operations of any of our tenants of these facilities and they're all leased on a long-term basis so for us while we are involved in this upfront and obviously in the transaction to acquire the real estate and to contribute depends deal in that way after the transaction we're not really involved in the property level day-to-day operations I'll just say a little bit about the lease structure because I think that's important in the issues you're focused on today our leases are generally 35-year leases so the lease with Pinnacle that this property would be going into was put in place in 2016 so it's in year three of a total term of 35 years now it's structured so that it has a 10-year initial term and then five-year renewals those are all the option of the tenant so we as the landlord as long as the tenant is not in breach of the lease don't have any right to kick our tenants out until the end and no incentive to quite frankly I mean for us our objective is to make sure that we always have tenants in our buildings unlike any other REIT vacancies are bad for us so if Penn were to agree to be there for for 80 years that would be great for us there are accounting reasons why we don't have longer term leases and we don't need to get into that unless you'd like to but suffice to say that those leases become a different character more like a financing if you enter into a long-term lease that includes the buildings and things like that so the 35 years wasn't any desire on behalf of the tenants or the landlord to kick anybody out at the end of 35 years it was more structured to ensure that these leases met certain requirements to be a true lease so those are the terms and at the end of the term we have a very unique feature in our leases so our struggle as a landlord in this and the reason why I don't think there were any gaming REITs prior to ours was the highest and best use of all these properties is gaming so the next best use for any of these properties is something that generates much less revenue and rent than what a gaming establishment would so our concern was always that at the end of this 35 years how do we ensure that if Penn or Pinnacle or Boyd or El Dorado or whoever it might be doesn't want to run these properties anymore how do we ensure that we get somebody else in there that does want to run these properties rather than just having the license move across the street or next door or to a neighboring county so we have a provision in our leases that at the end of the term whenever that might be if assuming we don't renegotiate a new lease with our tenants and our tenants want out how do we transition to the new tenant and so that that provision is structured so that if Penn at the end of the term decides they no longer want to be the tenant in our buildings they're required under the lease to sell their operating assets to a new tenant that will enter into a new lease with us in that building to continue the gaming operations and there are all sorts of nuances in those provisions to ensure that they get fair market value and that our lease is fair market but the desire is to ensure at the end of that lease term not that gaming stops or that you have to reissue a new license to a whole new establishment that's going to build a new casino and you're going to have two or three years or certainly more than a year where it's dark while somebody constructs something new we have the same interest you do which is essentially make sure that those properties never go dark and so that provision has been put in place to let them out let them get fair market value for their assets but ensure that there's a new tenant in that building that obviously will be subject to the licensure of the various gaming agencies that will continue to operate in those facilities so that's our goal long term is always to have a tenant in there and that's why that provision is in the lease the only time we get involved in the operations of the tenant and it's not even the operations is we have some minimal capital investment requirements in the lease which is pretty typical for REITs ours are actually less than yours in your in your gaming regulations so it doesn't really implicate anything in mass years are more stringent as are many others than what ours would be and we obviously have obligations in there that the tenant maintain the properties because as the tenant in our properties we want to make sure that the HVAC systems are maintained that the roofs are maintained that the parking lots are kept maintained all the things that are are affiliated with the ownership of the land in the building other than that we don't really get involved we have very few approval rights the only thing that that pen pinnacle and they're all the same our leases currently are all the same in this regard have to come to us is if they're if they're impacting the structural integrity of the building so if they want to tear down walls or they want to remove they want to build on and they want to attach to the building we do have certain rights in the agreement to see those plans to ensure that they've hired a certified architect that they meet all the local zoning requirements and and the goal there is just these are our buildings and if while Penn is a triple net tenant and they have an obligation to indemnify us if things go wrong there if the building falls down and people are injured that's going to be on us too I mean yes we'd have an indemnification right but we're going to be front and center as the property owner in those and so we want to make sure that those buildings are properly maintained and if they do construction in those buildings that the integrity of those buildings is maintained so to date we've had many many instances where pen has come to us with either a notice or an approval request same with pinnacle same with our friends the casino queen and we've to date we've never said no so there's nothing that's come across our desk that we've said wow this is a concern to us as a read so we're really not in it to determine whether or not it's profitable or whether or not it's something that we might like we're in it to make sure that the structural integrity and footprint of our building is something we understand and we know we know has been done right and so the the only other thing I'd like to point out and then happy to answer any questions you have about us is you know we view ourselves as a as a value add to gaming in these jurisdictions because as a read we are we are aligned not only in that we want the same thing you do we want to turn it in there that's running the facility that's operating it in a way that is maximizing the revenue for not only you but for us because obviously if you're not getting your tax revenues we're not getting our rent and we want to make sure that if they're not interested in operating that property anymore or they're doing so in a manner that's letting that property deteriorate that we step in and say hey that's not that's not what you've agreed to that's not good for us and I don't think it's good it's good for you and if they decide they no longer want to operate the property we are sitting there as well wanting somebody else in there to do it just just like you would and probably bringing forth people that we think might and for you to determine whether or not they can be licensed to do so we also and not a diversion to the gaming companies but because of our structure from a financial perspective we're a higher rated credit risk because we are in GLPI specifically is currently split rated we're investment grade with S&P and we are not below in Moody's but because of the nature of a REIT where we distribute 90 percent of our net income and dividends to our to our investors we we don't incur a lot of debt we don't have a lot of operations so we are financially REITs generally financially are pretty strong creatures now that's not to say that there aren't periods in history or REITs got into trouble they have mortgage REITs had problems in the late 80s and early 90s you know I think there are some retail REITs that are struggling a little bit mostly with vacancies and lack of their rents are going down their tenants are disappearing that's a much different scenario than we have here and if that should happen to us I can't tell you we won't have a problem too if gaming suddenly is no longer wanted and these guys can't justify operating these facilities we'll have the same problem you will you know your tax revenues will go down our tenants won't be able to pay the same rents and we'll be struggling to figure out what we do next so I don't want to pretend like we're bulletproof we're not but I think we're very similarly aligned to to you folks I think I'll stop there I mean there's there's so much we could talk about and do with respect to our interests and and what we do and what we try to do but I think that that'll come later I think those are the things that are probably germane to the issues in front of you today but that being said I'm happy to answer any questions you have about us thank you thank you my the question that I have if I'm understanding this correctly that even if you were to redo not getting into the details of how but even if you restarted the clock the maximum time would be 35 years for lease and renewal options for reasons unrelated to I think so I mean what you have to do because these are unitary portfolios so pen pen pinnacle whomever doesn't have the right to just get rid of one property so they're all tied together and they're cross collateralized and that allows us to pay a little bit more there's more security in that because of that you have to look at the useful life of all the properties in in the lease and you we did a useful life analysis and determined that 35 years is about as far as we could push it under these facilities now I know that's somewhat foolish in the sense that you say well gosh there are buildings have been around for hundreds of years you could go around Boston and find buildings that have been here for well over a hundred years unfortunately the tax and accounting rules don't quite support that even though we know people maintain their buildings they improve their buildings they do things to ensure that the structural integrity is maintained and they last who knows how long right but we're stuck in that and that really gets into accounting treatment as well and without getting too deep into the weeds in an area where I don't belong being accounting the accounting rules are changing in 2019 so it's such that things previously recognized as operating leases will have to be treated as capital leases in many circumstances that doesn't apply to us at the REIT and so the lease that we're purporting to put this into we for the most part in these leases somewhat are chopped up and this gets pretty nuanced but we believe that we'll have operating lease treatment for that which is which is optimal for us if we were to put a 60 year term on a lease clearly that's going to be treated more like a financing than it is that it is a true lease and so from our perspective it complicates it we probably will have to carve that out into a separate lease which I'm not going to tell you it can't be done it certainly can it's just much more complicated and not quite as secure as what we're proposing today thank you Mr. Obama if I may then um and I'm not going to repeat or read to you what was in the letter I know you have that in front of you but if I if I could just briefly address the two points that are in front of you the first is the statutory interpretation question do after a transfer does a licensee have to have did the legislature say licensees must have a lease that extends 60 years beyond the term of the then license and and we looked at first at that we say the answer is no you're not surprised to hear that but we look first at the transfer provisions of the statute and the regulations and certainly the legislature contemplated that licensees were permitted and authorized to transfer the real estate on which their facilities operate after a certain after they were up and running with the focus being on whether the new owner was suitable to be an owner and whether the I think in the language of your regulation whether the transfer it could be rejected if the transfer was disadvantageous to the commonwealth no provisions in the statutory provisions about transfers or in the regulations that say and by the way if you transfer the property you have to have a new lease that goes out another 60 years I think the reason for that a couple reasons for that on under this the statute first of all that requirement alone wouldn't I would suggest get the commission what it's interested in which is the security of a long term facility you do get those that security in the terms of the lease that you will have in front of you because the lease says to the tenant you must you must operate a gaming facility in order to be a tenant on our property and as Mr. Moore explained if for some reason at the end of the 32 years that will remain on this lease it was not renewed the licensee would be required to enter into an auction process to deliver to the commission a successor tenant for your review and and upon approval there would be a new licensee in that property for a minimum of a 10-year lease and obviously the expectation here is that it wouldn't stop at 10 years that's that's just the starting point so in terms of the security that's granted to the commonwealth we do say that's that's present in this in this situation the reason the legal issue came up is because of section perfectly reasonable question for the staff to ask because section 15 of the statute when it talks about an applicant before you even have your facility constructed says so if you're an app no applicant shall be eligible to receive a gaming license unless the applicant meets the following criteria and then there's about god scores of them but one of them is own or acquire within 60 days after a license has been awarded the land where the gaming establishment is proposed to be constructed provided that and let me paraphrase when their ownership of the land shall include a tendency of 60 years or more from the license so we say the the way to read that statute is it's saying okay there's only dirt there's no facility someone's coming in they're being considered for a license and and they either have to own it or will treat you as an owner if you have a 60-year lease makes perfect sense at the outset of the construction of a facility but I would suggest it also makes perfect sense that when the legislature got around to talking about transfers of real estate there was no need to include that sort of provision indeed the licensee no longer will be the owner of the real estate if the commission approves this transaction so the language of section 15 doesn't even apply this special will treat you as an owner if you have have this sort of super long long lease so that's why we say and we're asking for approval of a transaction that has starts out with a 32-year lease I'd say substantial probability of 42 and and reasonable likelihood at least of extending beyond that's all I have to say about the lease term unless there's any questions on that that that leaves me with the trust instrument and as you know the the interim authorization regulations sensibly say that if we grant if the commission grants interim authorization and this closing occurs subject to being undone if final authorization isn't granted that if after initial interim authorization is granted the commission determines that the transferee may not be suitable there must be a trust provision that says all right at that point you've the transaction is closed but you need to transfer the land in this case to the trust and then we'll see what happens down the road if you are determined to be suitable you may get the property back if not it may be auctioned it could many different outcomes could occur again I think as mr. Grossman said all with a clear purpose of ensuring that if there is a suitability problem that transferee is there is clear separation from that transferee and in our situation the real estate so we propose a trust that we believe adheres to both the letter and the spirit of of the regulations and in this way here we know plane rich has been the owner and I think I can go so far as to say that's been a good thing people like plane rich as as the owner we think you're going to like glpi as as the new owner but if there were to be a problem that arose in this transaction the the we think first the most practical and beneficial result is ship the property back to the entity that owns it now and that is your licensee who you regulate and who you know rather than to a trust or you know god forbid an auction and then what it would you know what do we do at that point so so the proposal we have in the trust is that if there is a problem with interim authorization um then at glpi's option it could eat the property either goes to the trust for the regulations or right back to the licensee and the last thing I'd say about that is I think that's basically the same thing as saying what we'd all agree on anyway which is if you've got two parties in front of you they want a transaction approved or an interim authorization approval before you they could at any point say thank you but never mind we're not going to do an interim authorization but we'll file a new application and wait the full time to see if it's approved that's effectively I would say all this trust instrument is doing and so for that reason we've asked for approval of the trust permission as well questions can I ask um um it sounded from your prior comments uh from the group that um as part of this transaction the the the property is going under the pinnacle master lease uh mostly because of convenience because that's the only master lease that you're opening as opposed to the pen master lease which is where we originated from because you're not opening that that lease yeah absolutely that's exactly right so we could have put it in the pen lease but we thought since we were already making amendments to the pinnacle lease it would just be easiest to put it in there but is the pen lease there as a very different from the pinnacle lease or no they are they're very very similar the term is slightly different the leases are almost identical and the reason you're hit the button for your the leases are almost identical primarily because we went through some FTC review and the FTC has taken an in-depth look at our leases we own five to six casinos in the st louis market we have um two casinos and out of three in the baton rouge market the terms of that lease were very took a very long time to construct those leases the pinnacle lease only differs in that the initial term is 10 years as opposed to pens which is 15 the total term of both is 35 the pen lease has a percentage rent component they both do a very small percentage rent component the penn lease resets every five years pinnacle every two years so there's some nuanced economic terms that are a little bit different but all the substantive terms of the lease are the same anybody else um director i mean uh attorney lilios um we know from the legal standpoint we've been briefed that that our staff is comfortable with this has there's been some preliminary background checking and so forth suitability checking by the IEB's been involved in all of the discussions about these two preliminary issues with you part of this interim authorization period is that we identify qualifiers for this transaction and that we get full applications the multi-jurisdictionals from the individuals business entity disclosure forms from the new entities that process of those submissions have been complete we are at the initial stages of starting that initial uh invest review but from everything from the multiple meetings we have had with these individuals as well as some of the qualifiers were previously qualified before in connection with the initial licensure um to date uh there's uh no uh information otherwise but of course we have not completed the initial investigation yet but obviously you're comfortable enough to be okay with the preliminary decision well the decisions that you're making uh today are um uh initial uh legal decisions that the IEB is comfortable with in terms of you know any impact on the suitability uh questions uh and when we come to you the next time which i expect will be in august that will be for interim authorization where we will have preliminary recommendation regarding suitability got it so we're only approving you you're asking we're asking to consider the approval of the trust on those terms and those were the lease term that mr albein already talked about and the provision that goes back if ultimately the transaction is not approved back to the current licensee is that is that a first statement that's exactly right it's just those two narrow issues it's the the terms of the lease as far as the reversionary ability of the beneficiary and the the actual length of the lease I'm sorry the term the reversion of the trust and the the term of the lease otherwise everything else will be handled at the the next hearing okay next time we'll get to hear all this again yes I'm just curious uh because I may not be able remember to meet to ask this question what happens under the terms of the agreement to plainville gaming and redevelopment after the they transferred the it's it's it is there it is the it is excuse me it is there it is the licensee it's the operator okay we'll continue to be the operator under pen's control under the nationals control no change whatsoever that'll be at the next phase that'll be one of the considerations is whether there's any change of control or change at all to the gaming licensee which is uh plainville gaming and redevelopment um so you will get to look at that I'll say I'll say but good all right anybody else we have a motion I'd be happy to move Mr. Chairman that the commission approved the request from the licensees to include the trust terms as stipulated here we have to redo that motion I would consider moving that the you approve the trust as it was submitted in accordance with those terms and separately approve the length of the resulting lease that you'll be able to take a second look at but at the moment you're comfortable with the lease term so are we saying fact specific the length of their lease or just saying that the 60 years does not apply as a matter of law that's either way yes that's more specifically would be the question of law whether the 60 years is applicable not necessarily the 35 years being appropriate that's exactly right so I would say two separate motions the first is whether you approve the trip I'll I'll um I'll strike my prior motion and make a motion to approve the terms of the trust as submitted and discussed here today second second for the discussion on favor I opposed you guys have announced and then we need to I would suggest the second part is that you agree with the interpretation of section 15 paragraph 3 of chapter 23k that the 60 year language does not serve as a bar in this instance okay I'll move that the commission agree with the staff read and recommendation that section 15 be that pertains to applicants not apply and then specifically the 60 year provision relative to lease of the land does not apply to current licensees as discussed here today second second for the discussion all in favor I oppose the eyes have unanimously you want to thank you once again you heard the time I appreciate it very much so we will adjourn for half an hour we'll be back at 135 thank you meaning 245 I think at uh a little after 130 and we are on to item number five Catherine blue good afternoon commissioners we're on item 5b in your packet you have a letter from mgm they're requesting a waiver from one of the commission's regulations and this is regulation regard the regulation regarding gaming schools it's 205 cmr 130702 section 2 a 12 and that regulation requires that as part of the gaming school curriculum for table games that the people involved in training to to learn table games be provided with or be required to take cpr mgm has requested a waiver from that provision of our regulation they've outlined the reasons for their waiver in the letter that's in the in the packet they cite two predominant reasons which is they have a highly trained security force who is more able to deal with these kinds of issues and also because the dealer at the table is there to protect assets as opposed to provide medical assistance I know that we have come before you recently for waivers and I just want to provide you with the standard for granting a waiver as you consider whether you'd like to grant this one our regulation 205 cmr 102.03 section 4 says that the commission may in its discretion grant or waver grant a variance from any provision of a requirement contained in section 205 where the commission finds and there's four things you have to consider that granting the waiver or the variance is consistent with the purposes of chapter 23k granting the waiver or the variance will not interfere with the ability of the commission to fulfill its duties granting the waiver or variance will not adversely affect the public interest and not granting the waiver or the variance would cause a substantial hardship to the person requesting the waiver or the variance so I think MGM has outlined its request and why it's making its request I think there is certainly an argument that they've met the waiver standards but there's also other you know arguments on the other side and I wanted the commission to have an opportunity to discuss this and then ask any questions it has how long is the CPR class in hours in terms of a couple hours that's it that's yeah approximately two anyway about two we offer it here at our at our facility and it's you know about two maybe three hours but they have to come to here from Springfield no no no I mean I'm that's just I'm just sharing that we at the gaming commission provided to our employees it takes after a couple hours or of time no this is provided at the gaming school it's part of the curriculum yeah I'm not persuaded at all that they shouldn't go because they should their training is their training and they can't fit it into the curriculum but I am persuaded I am the fact that their primary job is to protect to protect the assets is does make sense to me you step away from that table and all of those chips are at risk and in those things you know so that piece of the argument made some sense to me I'm all in favor for everybody being CPR trained frankly I think it's it's only good but I do see the point that stepping away from the table and the fact that everyone else in a close proximity is trained is is something to consider here I don't know if council can ask can answer this question or not but I'm not persuaded that a nap day class is a substantial hardship but to your point that doesn't mean you know functionally having them step away to to respond to that is the best way to handle it is there a process for them to alert security personnel I mean ideally I'd like to see the CPR certified but then they so they know who to flag thank you commissioner I appreciate the opportunity and certainly defer to attorney blue as to providing you with some additional information but if it's helpful I'll try to answer the questions that you have it's my understanding first of all that the the company does have a very specific emergency response plan that covers obviously CPR that Mr. Rucker who was here earlier obviously will oversee that particular function I can't answer specifically as to whether or not there's a particular protocol for alert but you heard today other circumstances about the interaction between certainly wait staff and other service aspects and security and the interaction with management as well and I feel pretty comfortable saying that they're there you know certainly will be a way of alerting security in this what we view as a very controlled environment in order to get a person as much help as possible the only other thing I want to add just in connection with the petition just to be clear that this is a joint petition on behalf of the Institute and MVF and Commissioner O'Brien you did indicate earlier you know is it only a couple of hours you're not convinced if you look at the at the criteria that they're required to teach one issue on behalf of the institution is that this requires a completely different set of expertise so it requires them to bring in a separate person adding an additional resource and I know we've been sensitive around keeping the costs controlled for this so while I don't dispute it's only a couple hours it is a very different aspect that requires a different level of expertise in order to provide this at the Institute as well so is the substantial hardship monetary argument because it would be passed on to the students or that MCCTI couldn't absorb the cost of hiring I think they are required to absorb the cost right now certainly I think it would be helpful considering all the you know the cost controls and the attempts to keep the tuition to this uh at uh at the most reasonable level is possible and do we know an actual dollar amount and what I don't have that sure the um in the letter the second page top paragraph you know kind of addresses uh the rationale for security because it's more than just the service it is also um it is also a crowd control the contact of paramedics and you know collecting the information from the victim all of those things which are better handled by security I yeah I'm not concerned that there's not someone close by to handle the situation I just I agree that the training is is good for everyone to have but the you know the part of this that didn't was persuasive was there protecting that stepping away and leaving all those chips unguarded is not um is not at anyone's best interest obviously saving a life is and um you know is is there's someone right there to handle that function within seconds I I think that that piece of the request is okay but the requirement they're seeking waiver from is not that they be mandated as job description to perform CPR but just that they don't have to get the certification right the training it's actually it's a requirement for the curriculum yeah that they actually be uh trained that's an element if you look at the at the CMR it includes everything you have to do for and again this is this is limited to only um uh table game dealers that they're required to go through and they have I think there's 12 different elements that they're trained in and then one of them is a CPR component and we're just asking to take the CPR component out of the training for a practical matter this requirement my understanding is again applies to the institute not to the company so there's not a separate mandate that all table game dealers be CPR certified it's only if you've gone through the institute's training that that's part of the curriculum and we're supporting that and providing the the additional information to the commission in connection with that to say that this function will be clearly covered by security making that not necessary to be part of the curriculum yeah I guess the point I was making is everything in page two in terms of who would execute is not impacted by whether or not these people get trained in CPR is that correct I believe that would be correct yes yeah I I don't know how this is a substantial hardship just by going through the through the waiver request right I think I was also trying to think of the other one other part of the waiver which is the the public interest I actually think that somebody being at least able to spot a symptom as quickly as possible just having some awareness which was the purpose in my view when we first wrote those those those regulations just having had at least the notion that you know you need to call security as soon as you see these symptoms or have at least gone through some kind of training and awareness I don't think anybody's talking about certifications by the way it's just the notion of going through the training would actually serve the public interest I don't know how these so I have in my view kind of like two elements of the waiver that kind of work against it I actually agree I was also with mixed feelings because of the protection element but but if if we're just looking at the waiver I have a hard time actually getting past two elements of the waiver so I'm in general reluctant yeah in your point is very well taken that recognizing the symptom and be able to call security over instantly it is is is a factor here it would be critical time yes rather than not knowing if you don't have the training and the person might struggle for you know more time because someone didn't recognize the issue yeah I you know we've already I think we've already had one class that has gone through that did have CPR as a component of their training you know I I guess I question I hear the other arguments you know I I think to Commissioner Zuniga's point you know having that awareness that training awareness whether you actually leave the table to conduct the you know the actual CPR itself is is is certainly a challenge if you're walking away from the table you know I feel a little reluctant to to maybe grant the exemption but in the meantime maybe kind of revisit the regs I mean the curriculum is all laid out on our regs we adopted I think what Pennsylvania gave us you know I'm I feel more willing to do that than to grant an exemption when we're not sure we meet the standards of the exemption I know that that might hinge on time when this is coming up in terms of the schedule for the next class or the class it's currently going through you know but I think there's some valid points to be made of if not full certification some awareness of training of the customer comes into stress because I think that is part of well if you attend for a half a day you're technically certified so it's not a it's not any more onerous so you're you're having the training and you have the hands-on technique and then you are technically certified it it it seems if I'm understanding this right there is a policy at MGM that in the event of such a problem the security people are the ones who are mandated to deal with it not the table games person not but not the table servers the so we're training for some people to do something that the the company's rules tell them not to do you know or tell somebody else to do the job is to get the super is to get the security person to come over and take care of that medical emergency number one and number two if I understood the other point one of you said right if you'd come up from foxwood so you don't need to be trained you just go in and get accepted as a job you don't have to go through this training so you know how to deal already if you already know how to deal you don't need to go through the MCCI program so we have sort of a weird thing here we've we've put up a rule that applies to some dealers a training requirement that applies to some dealers but not to all dealers so we ought to fix that one way the if we think it's important then we probably ought to require it of everybody on the one hand and on the second hand we're suggesting a role for these table for the dealers that is not consistent with the protocols of their company which is also a problem but the rules weren't set up to be particularized to a licensee I mean they were set up to look out for the interests of the people there so yeah and I think the point but if we're going to stick with that then we ought to make them undo this rule I mean I'm just saying or just make everyone get certified well no but under this rule the supervisor under their policy 900 the supervisor there is a detailed response of each security team member to a life-threatening blah blah blah but it's not in conflict that rule is not in conflict with our reds actually supplement I would argue which was my point about just the awareness which was the original intent of my training yes well that's a different that seems to be a different issue if there's spending whatever amount of time was required in awareness maybe ought to be part of policy 900 you know that as part of this overall emergency response having table dealers be trained to recognize the problem that makes all kinds of sense to me but as it stands it seems like we have a variety of inconsistencies in this policy I don't see the inconsistency in the policy it's actually a policy of them they're quoting a they're quoting a CMR because we're asking them to submit their plan right that's that's the regulation when they do it seems pretty reasonable that they would have certain people trained and there's a protocol I just simply see it independent from our requirement of having this training I think the point you make is an interesting one relative to some disparity but that has to do with where we place these regulations in the training during the certification of the mass career casino institute which was our lever at the time right but if if we believe I'm really mixed on this frankly I I don't know which way I would come down on this I'm just trying to think it through logically if we think it's important that dealers be trained in CPR then we should make them all trained in CPR and I would argue that we already did when we promulgated the prior regulations of for the casino certification for the train what we are now considering is a waiver from that and which is what I'm focusing on does it meet the four elements on the waiver and I have a harder time getting past waiver recent number three and number four because it's neither in the I don't think it's a substantial hardship um to the to the person requesting it to the case in point we already have a class that went through it and I don't think that this would adversely affect the public interest quite the contrary it actually enhances public interest I do you think it's important enough that we ought to have everybody all dealers have this training yes so it's important which is where we put it in uh in the when we certified where we um put the regulations for the training for the mass career casino institute now if there's other if you go through that but that's only to go through but they have to go through mgm specific training right so but mgm specific training would be compatible with this protocol which I imagine from what it says teaches table games people who see a problem to signal the security according to what it sounds like their protocol that's what they would that's what that's what mgm would train to do and and again which is not in conflict with having gone through two hours of training to recognize the you know it doesn't mean that they will do it they just have to go through the training yeah the the issue really isn't whether the training is is valuable or not the issue really is we have a regulation that requires this as part of the table games curriculum mgm and the mccti are asking for a waiver they have to meet the standards you have to be comfortable that they meet the standards to grant them a waiver if if you feel comfortable you can grant it if you don't you don't have to the separate issue of whether it should be part of the curriculum at all is a different conversation for the well this was commissioner step with his point right so maybe we should deal with this if if you take that literally if really the only issue here is whether or not the request for a waiver meets the criteria we've laid out and you really stick to the letter of that then then your point becomes very significant maybe the better way to deal with this is for us to decide whether we really believe that all dealers should have cpr training or not and if they should amend our regs to say that and if they should not amend our regs to take out well our regs so our regs only have this under the curriculum so there is no broader place in our race to require all dealers to have cpr training there could be conversations around the internal controls that mgm submits as to who gets trained and who doesn't that that's a separate issue we only have this requirement as a curriculum requirement that's what makes it a little bit tough too so either we are comfortable that we can let mccti take this out of their curriculum for this particular purpose or we think that it doesn't meet the waiver standard and it stays in the curriculum but at some point in the future the commission can revisit what the curriculum is in in general not just this particular part of the curriculum but the whole curriculum i'm on the latter part of that which is i you know narrowly think that the waiver request at this point doesn't meet the standards that we set up for waivers and that if we need to revisit this issue come back and think about it somebody have a motion let me see if i can articulate it better than the last time i will move that the commission does not grant the waiver petition from mgm and mccti relative to the training on on cpr measures as presented here and discussed here today second for the discussion how many days is the training the training is a couple of hours between the overall training i don't know it's the number of hours is in the red yeah yeah it goes over a period of weeks i believe yeah the training hours if you look at section i don't know if you have it 137.02 curriculum it's broken down and it depends on the type of game you're being trained with but the maximum is 200 hours to deal crabs so you're talking pretty small percentage any further discussion so the motion was what remind me to deny the waiver the waiver has requested here to all in favor of denying the waiver please say aye aye opposed the denial is passed unanimously items five c through five j are um regulation requests that you have seen before they were the subject of this morning's regulation hearing so this those regulations are in the final promulgation process we have received no comments on any of these regulations um so they are ready to move to the final stage and get finished up the last two regulations are new and so we can talk a little bit more about them this will be the first time that you're seeing them so we're asking you to begin the promulgation process so i just thought it'd be helpful to know kind of where we are with each one um five c this we're asking you to approve the final draft version of 205 cm or 101 that's the adjudicatory proceedings the the new hearing regulations that we have gone over and have been in front of you a couple of times um again they were at the public hearing this morning we've received no comments and so we're asking your authorization to complete the promulgation process so mr chair i move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for cm for 205 cm or 101 adjudicatory proceedings included in the packet second for the discussion for the discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously and i further move that the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 101 adjudicatory proceedings as included in the packet and authorize the staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process second for the discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously uh five d is the final draft version of 205 cm or 115 and then all of the other sections of our regulations that needed to be adjusted once we made changes to the adjudicatory proceedings in 101 so we're asking today for you to approve that final draft version and the amended small business impact statement so we can complete the promulgation process for those that group of amendments mr chair i move the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 115 at al hearing procedure updates included in the packet second discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five e is the final draft version of 205 cm or 138 point 60 Catherine do you want me i guess yeah oh that's right i forgot i'm sorry you jumped in mr chair i also moved the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 115 at al hearing procedure updates is included in the packet and authorizes staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process second any discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five e is 205 cm or 138 point 62 this is payment of table game progressive payout wagers this is an amended regulation for the institution of table games um and this was one we heard this morning as well in the rate hearing we have a motion so mr chair i move that the commission approved the amended small small business impact statement for 205 cm or 138 point 62 payment of table game progressive payout wagers supplemental wagers not paid from the table game inventory included in the packet second second any discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously and i further move the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 138 point 62 payment of table game progressive payout wagers supplemental wagers not paid from the table game inventory as included in the packet and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgatory process second second discussion on favor i opposed the eyes having unanimously five f is the final version of 205 cm or 143.02 for progressive gaming devices do we have a motion we do all right the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 143.02 progressive gaming devices included in the packet second second discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously the commission approved the version 205 cm or 143.02 progressive gaming devices included in the packet and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process second discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five g is the final draft version of 205 cm or 146.23 this is the physical characteristics of the chase the flush table second no do we have a motion i'll move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 146.23 chase the flush table physical characteristics as included in the packet second discussion on favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously i further move that the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 146.23 chase the flush table physical characteristics as included in the packet and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process further discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five h is the final draft version of 205 cm or 146.63 this is progressive wager equipment ocean mr. chair i move the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 146.63 progressive wager equipment included in the second discussion all in favor i oppose the eyes having unanimously i further move that the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 146.63 progressive wager equipment as included in the packet and authorize the staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process second discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously section five i is the final draft version of 205 cm or 146.59 this is the physical characteristics for the crisscross poker tables so mr. chair i move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 146.59 crisscross poker tables physical characteristics included in the packet second second discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously further move that the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 146.59 crisscross poker tables physical characteristics as included in the packet and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation and promulgation process second discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five j is the final draft version of 205 cm or 146.58 this is the physical characteristics of the crazy four poker table uh mr. chair i move the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205 cm or 146.58 crazy four poker table physical characteristics included in the packet second discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously i further move the commission approved the version of 205 cm or 146.58 crazy four proper table physical characteristics as included in the packet and authorize staff to take all necessary steps to finalize the regulation promulgation process second discussion all in favor i i oppose the eyes having unanimously five k is an amendment to 205 cm or 135.01 and 205 cm or 139.04 this is the first time it's before the commission and i know commissioner stephens may want to weigh in on this too we have talked about this before about addressing the definition of veteran that definition shows up in 135 that's but the only place in our rigs that shows up and we if you remember back when we started the process we did veteran certifications and then at some point osd started to do veteran certifications the change in this definition mostly syncs it up with what osd does but it takes care to make sure that we're not impacting any contracts that are currently held by veteran certified enterprises that have been certified under the prior condition so it's going to this change will not impact existing contracts but as we move into operations it will provide for people being certified by osd and i think it stops us or our certification too does it not or it it kind of takes us out of the certification business for folks that were helping with construction what we've encouraged folks to do is to get their vbe certification from osd our meetings with osd show it does not take a great deal of time to get them through that process and we actually actually allocated some funds to osd to help them with that but it again we stepped in when there was a need to be filled and now i think we're kind of stepping out of it and giving agencies that do this as their course of business the ability to do the actual review i personally one of the things i was always worried about is because the nature of our review only asks for some background information some of their discharge information that we hate to ever have a situation where somebody says hey i'm a vbe and they're not a vbe and this kind of takes us again away from what our stopgap solution was and provides a more permanent solution and again also helps our licensees get credit for doing business with vbe's and and maybe through their interaction with sdo also opens them up or makes them more aware of other bidding opportunities that they could have with the state so what happens when if somebody just leaves a contract open ended and decides to continue just for the casino purposes so how do we know i don't really know that eventually some everybody's gonna go via the osd as as intended here well i think we think that most of the current contracts are for construction purposes and we'll be moving out of construction so let's assume there was a company that could provide both construction and post construction services they would most likely have to enter into a new contract and at that point they'd be covered by these new rules for post construction one of the things we were concerned about when we drafted it was that we did not want to impact current contracts and current construction projects that we're trying to calculate how many vbe's they had on site so this really will will impact the operations portion and once construction's done it shouldn't be an issue is it clear that the criteria are essentially identical so we won't have it we won't have approved somebody as a vbe who can't vbe who can't get approved by osd no no right here our criteria are pretty much the same yeah the criteria was pretty much the same you know the the two biggest biggest pieces is demonstrate that you have discharge papers that show you're a veteran and we added a page to our to our licensing documents that allowed an individual to do that i think where you know st o offers some value is that you know there's a big piece of minority women are veteran business enterprise designation comes through does the person actually manage and run the company and i think they were able to do a much deeper dive on that thing we were in a position to do so i think you know this this kind of helps us again moving away from something that you know we found a quick solution to and putting it so that everybody is is on firm and solid ground for our licensees to say they do business with this number of vbe's as well for the vbe to be able to continue to pursue some opportunities but it is likely to that point that um with osd rules the businesses now have to provide more evidence of actual ownership and control not just the papers of some individual who is associated with uh with the business so there is some there is some possibility that somebody but but it's too bad because the artist who is osd is doing a better job than that we would in a nutshell yeah okay so do we need to move so yes we'll we'll start this we'll start the promulgation process it will take comments we'll have a public hearing down the road and bring it back to you for a final approval okay question i just want to make sure i'm on the right spot yes um i move the commission approve the small small business impact statement for the amendments to 205 cmr 135.01 definitions in 205 cmr 139.04 reports and information to be filed with the commission is included in the packet second discussion all in favor i i i posed the eyes have it unanimously i further move that the commission approved the version of the amendments to 205 cmr 135.01 definitions in 205 cmr 139.04 reports and information to be filed with the commission as included in the packet and authorize the staff to take all the necessary steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process second discussion all in favor i closed the eyes have it unanimously five l these are amendments to the reports and reconciliation um on gross gaming revenue and i i think well as you've seen us come back to you before with changes on some of these reporting requirements we are conforming the rig to what we've determined is really the best practice so the rig as it was originally drafted talked about the gaming licensee sending us money and it you know it wasn't as clear on the true up what you see now is what we actually do we send them an invoice we detail how we true it up so we think it makes more sense we're bet we're enshrining what we think is the best practice for now so that required a certain change in clarification to our rigs this is beginning the process so we will take it through we'll get comments we'll go through the public hearing process and then bring it back for final approval is there a b missing from that second red line after the b refunded that might be us we'll clean it up okay before it goes out we have a motion makes sense to me uh mr. chair i move that the commission approved the small business impact statement for amendments 205 c mr 140.04 reports um and reconciliation regarding the gross gaming revenue tax and uh as included in the packet second discussion can i just as should we be writing this in the active voice instead of the passive i mean we're striking out active voice you mean the right um yeah for the right language can we clean that up we can yeah we can look at that yep yep that was a good one any other discussion all in favor aye aye opposed the ayes have unanimously and i further move the commission approved the version of amendments to 205 c mr 140.04 reports and reconciliation regarding gross gaming uh revenue tax as included in the packet and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process second discussion all in favor aye opposed the ayes have unanimously thank you that's all of the regulations for today thank you the last item on our agenda is commissioner updates anything no i have one i just um return from um panel sitting on a panel in uh Niagara falls the gaming conference uh with our colleagues from canada and um as we usually do we did uh receive accolades for our responsible gaming in particular our play my way um game sense as well as our research from a number of uh canadian regulators and uh in addition um to that um our our colleagues were most interested in uh sports betting because they really feel like it'll affect uh what they do there they do not have the ability to um to have in-game betting so they were very very interested in what we do we'll do state by state and um as well as while we were in conference um the their senate passed uh cannabis uh on a recreational basis for the entire country and they gave it to the gaming regulators to regulate so there was much discussion about that that they have a new industry to regulate um and our colleagues for rather are um former consultants from spectrum gaming as well as hlt send their regards to all the commissioners and of course um you know uh talk talk fondly about their uh their assistance to us in the past so just wanted to pass that along great thank you so is is don't the different provinces of canada have different administrative structural structures but they each have um they do um they regulate gaming by province but the federal government has now given them cannabis to regulate by province as well anybody else uh i had the occasion on monday to talk to the governor's advisory commission on travel and tourism uh which the group consists of pretty much all the regional tourism councils from around the commonwealth so it was uh it was a great way to update them on where we are with our licensees what their impact is going to be as well as um the direction of some of the monies that come from the taxes on our class one licensees some of that going towards tourism some of that going going towards gaming economic development fund um there was uh there was a lot of general interest and not from the host regional tourism councils but from others to say hey how can we get how can we find an opportunity to work with the licensees to get somebody to come explore you know fly fishing up in franklin county or you know make sure they're aware of the 400th anniversary of plemoth and you know making sure that visitors to all the facilities have a chance to um you know get out and explore the date and make uh state and uh maybe extend their visits um so director griffin and i talked about uh it might be worthwhile for uh the appropriate folks that are licensees to have a chance to be in front of this group and think a little bit more statewide about how some of their guests and visitors might want to take in some other activities that are of interest to them so um and some of the rtc's also where dual hat is a chamber of commerce so we also talked about uh the purchasing and supplying power that isn't geographically restricted because uh mgm wants to buy seafood the best place is probably not the connecticut river but gloster new bedford or coming on the coast so um it was a good conversation and you know some good kind of follow-up to do items uh as a result great anybody else do i have a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor i i have it unanimously thank you all