Gov. Dannel P. Malloy had no opinion Wednesday on the Connecticut Airport Authority’s pitch to the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans to consider Bradley International Airport as a site for a jointly owned casino the tribes would like to develop as a hedge against competition in Springfield.
“The Connecticut Airport Authority was set up to be responsive to the marketplace,” Malloy said. “I am neither endorsing nor panning their response to a public RFP. That’s what they are in business to do. I don’t know if it makes sense or doesn’t make sense.”
Malloy commented on the proposal while at the airport to announce plans by Aer Lingus to offer daily service from Bradley to Dublin, beginning next fall.
The airport at Windsor Locks is in the I-91 corridor between Hartford and Springfield, the tribes’ preferred locale for a casino to compete with a gambling resort MGM is authorized to build in Springfield.
The tribes failed to convince the General Assembly in the last session to authorize the first casino in Connecticut off tribal land. Instead, it passed a largely symbolic bill authorizing them to seek proposals from host communities — something they could have done without the legislation.
To build what would be Connecticut’s third casino would require passage of another law.