Bets Off for 24-Hour Booze at Casinos

If you’re still playing roulette at dawn, your rum and coke will have no rum.  

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has put an end to her plan to allow 24-hour alcohol service at casinos.

The decision comes just after a Navy man was accused of a drunken driving crash in Montville that killed Elizabeth Durante, a Connecticut College junior, over the weekend.

Durante, 20, of West Islip, N.Y, was a budding humanitarian on her way to begin a humanitarian mission in Uganda when the crash happened. 

Daniel Musser, 24, told police that he had "four or five drinks over the course of the evening" at the Ultra 88 Night Club bar at Mohegan Sun, the Hartford Courant reports, citing a prosecutor's report released Monday at Musser's arraignment.

The crash occurred under the current closing-time laws but, "this kind of tragedy certainly does give us pause to consider the wisdom of expanding casino service hours," Rell spokesman Christopher Cooper told the Hartford Courant.

State law allows people to drink until 1 a.m. during the week at casinos and Rell had proposed removing that limit, so you could guzzle 24 hours a day, all week long.

Cooper said Rell's proposal, which was part of a plan to close the state's budget gap, would not be introduced this session.

On the morning of the crash, state police got a 911 call just after 3:30 a.m. that a car with its lights out was driving south in the northbound lanes of I-395 in Montville.

Several more 911 calls soon came, reporting a crash just south of Route 2A, near the Mohegan Sun exit.

The driver of the van that was hit was taking eight Connecticut College students to Logan Airport. He told police that he saw "a car coming right at him without lights," but not until it was about 25 feet away and it was too late to avoid a head-on collision, the Courant reports.
 

Contact Us