Coliseum: Who's paying the rent? Where are casino opponents' alternatives?

                                                                    

Nassau Coliseum (from Wikipedia)

Last Friday's decision by Acting Supreme Court Justice Sarika Kapoor that Las Vegas Sands Inc. does not have a valid lease for the county-owned Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale raises a lot of questions.

Kapoor, a Hofstra University's law school graduate, first sided in November with Hofstra when it challenged Nassau's lease with the Sands to develop a $4 billion entertainment resort and casino on the Coliseum's 72 acres.

Hofstra and the Village of Garden City had been the staunchest opponents to the proposed takeover of the outdated underused Coliseum by the Sands, which promised to generate millions in revenues to surrounding communities and businesses with its casino project.

In voiding the Sand's lease in November,  Kapoor said the county had not complied with New York's environmental review and open meetings laws.

On Friday, Kapoor again sided with Hofstra, agreeing that the county's transfer last year of  the lease from the Coliseum's then existing lease holder, Nassau Live Center, to the Sands also was not valid. 

Although the Sands paid Nassau Live Center $241 million for its interest in the Coliseum, Kapoor ruled the assigned lease terminated with the June 2, 2023 commencement date of the county's new lease with the Sands for the casino project.

She didn't explain how the new lease, which she ruled null and void because it was processed incorrectly,  could still have a valid commencement date. Wouldn't the commencement date also be null and void? And if the new lease never commenced because it was illegal, wouldn't the assigned lease still be in effect?

But not only did Kapoor rule the assigned lease between Nassau Live and the Sands terminated on the June 2, 2023 commencement date,  but she decided that Nassau Live Center's interest in the Coliseum also ended on June 2.

Does that mean that no outside entity now has a lease with the Coliseum? And if that's the case, who or what is paying the annual $4 million rent for the Coliseum?

 The county doesn't always get $4 million a year. It forgave some of the rent during the Covid crisis. And the various Coliseum operators over the past three decades have taken big discounts, claiming maintenance costs.

But the county always got something from someone. 

Kapoor didn't say who now would be responsible for the revenues.

Meanwhile, the most vocal opponents to the Casino have yet to come up with any alternatives.

Hofstra University President Susan Poser, Garden City Mayor Mary Flanagan, Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, a Glen Cove Democrat who has since been elected the legislature's minority leader, all spoke out against the casino and suggested health and tech industries in its place.

The opponents were happy to tell county officials what they should put at the Coliseum. But the opponents have not done any of the hard work needed to bring in any of those industries.

Just last week, Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallaro suggested health and tech industries be located at the Coliseum, but again, he wants the Town of Hempstead to do the work to find and convince these industries to move to Uniondale.

It's always so easy to tell other people what to do.