The Nassau County Legislature voted Monday to approve a proposal to lease the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum property to Las Vegas Sands casino company.
It passed by a margin of 18-1, after passing both the county’s Planning Commission and the Legislature’s Rules Committee on July 18 and July 22, respectively. A vote for a state environmental review of the coliseum and surrounding property passed unanimously.
The vote first passed 17-1 in the Republican-majority legislature in 2023 – the lone dissenting vote was Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove), with one abstain by former Legislator Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) – and granted Sands a 99-year lease to the coliseum, but a New York State judge ruled the lease invalid.
DeRiggi-Whitton was once again the lone dissenter on this vote, although she did vote to approve environmental review of the property.
As a result, while Sands has had control of the property since November, the process of lease approval had to start all over again.
Las Vegas Sands plans to build a $4 billion casino and resort on the property, which is supported by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and (number) county legislators, some Republican, some Democrat.
However, this vote was technically not related to the casino plans, instead just granting Sands a 27-year site-control lease with three terms of five-year renewals, potentially giving Sands control of the property for 42 years.
Sands will take over the coliseum and its surrounding property – an area central to the region known as the Nassau Hub – but they still have to receive gaming licenses from the state, which might be granted next year at the earliest. If a gaming license is denied, Sands intends to go ahead with plans for a resort on the property.
The plans for a casino has seen mixed reviews from Nassau residents, with a group of them forming the Say No To The Casino Civic Association in 2023. The association claims putting a casino will bring gambling addictions, drugs, unnecessary traffic, prostitution, and pollution.
While the coliseum is located in Uniondale, an unincorporated hamlet in the Town of Hempstead, the neighboring Village of Garden City voted in 2023 to condemn the plans for a casino, and its mayor, Mary Carter Flanagan – elected in 2023 – has been vocal about her opposition to the casino.
“The Village of Garden City is adamantly and unequivocally opposed to the casino project,” Flanagan said. “We don’t want more DWI fatalities. We don’t want more addiction. We don’t want more pollution, and we don’t want more traffic. We’ve had two [village] elections since this project has been known, and in each election the candidates ran, every candidate in the last election came out in opposition to the casino.”
Hofstra University has also criticized the plans, with vice president of marketing and communications Terry Coniglio showing up at the meeting to criticize the plan, saying the lease is a precursor to the casino.
“Las Vegas Sands has been operating the Coliseum property since November of 2023 and as Hofstra has stated previously, we appreciate and support the ongoing operation of the Coliseum in the same manner as has been occurring until a resolution is reached regarding the long term development of the Nassau Hub,” Coniglio said. “The jobs of those employed at the Coliseum are not dependent on the lease. The operating lease at issue is not for the purpose of maintaining jobs. Rather, it is a precursor to and contemplates the development of a casino at the Nassau Hub. The 42 year term of the proposed lease would foreclose the possibility of any long term development of the Coliseum by anyone other than Las Vegas Sands.”
Labor leaders, however, disagree strongly with the anti-casino activists. Sands is currently the only bidder for the coliseum, and if the lease were to be denied, the workers there would be out of jobs, they say.
“The economic development in this county is the thing that will drive the county into the future. Look, we have to look at this objectively,” Matthew Aracich, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, said at the meeting. “We understand, but we look at something different. The building trades model is something completely on its own, which means we try to make projects, we try to make sure they’re high class jobs with high class wages, with the same with benefits, a retirement job security. That’s what’s provided to these individuals here [at the coliseum]. If we didn’t go ahead and move that lease forward, these people would be out of a job. And it’s not just a job, it’s a career – a career they spent many years in. What do we do to replace them? Just a swipe and it’s gone. That’s an unconscionable action.”
The lease has also been supported by Ryan Stanton, executive director of the Long Island Federation of Labor.
The coliseum was once home to the New York Islanders, where they played from 1972 to 2015, which included their historic four consecutive Stanley Cup championship run. Questions have lingered about the coliseum’s status since the Islanders left, and many plans for its future have fallen through over the years.
