Want to get the top executive of a billion-dollar business on the phone within an hour?
Tell him Derby senior citizens are angry with him.
That is precisely what happened Thursday at about 3 p.m., after the Valley Indy and many others received an e‑mail from Derby Senior Center Director Sarah Muoio.
Muoio’s e‑mail contained a copy of a Boston Globe opinion piece in which Foxwoods honcho Scott Butera said … well, we’ll just let you read the Globe’s first few grafs:
Scott Butera is nothing but blunt when it comes to explaining what casino operators want from their customers — “their wallet and their spend.”
The chief executive of Foxwoods Resort Casino is also candid about customers he can do without — for example, those stereotypical busloads of senior citizens who show up with walkers and oxygen tanks.
“We’ve dropped a lot of that … not for humane reasons,” Butera jokes. It’s because those darn elders don’t gamble away enough of their money to help Foxwoods reach its goal, which at this point is basic survival.
Click here to read the rest of the piece, which was published May 24.
He Said What?
When a member of the Derby Senior Center on Main Street brought the article in this week, Muoio, outraged, immediately cancelled an upcoming trip to Foxwoods.
The Derby seniors will be boycotting Foxwoods, Muoio said, and sent out the mass e‑mail urging others to do the same.
“Mr. Butera should be fired for insulting seniors like that,” Muoio said. “Mohegan Sun, here we come.”
After the Valley Indy sent an e‑mail seeking a response to the casino’s press people, Butera himself called us back.
Foxwoods Says
He said, essentially, the Boston Globe scribe, Joan Vennochi, took his words out of context.
“We’re doing a lot of really good things here at Foxwoods. We’ve been spending a lot of time and money turning the property around. We absolutely love and care for all of our customers, certainly our senior citizen customers who have been with us the longest,” Butera said.
Butera said one of the Globe’s editorial writers asked him a question that went something like this:
“Look, I have this impression that all of your customers are elderly people on oxygen tanks that come in off a bus and you folks basically take their remaining money out of their social security check,” Butera said.
Butera said he replied with:
“I said, ‘Well, no, that is not a very accurate description of our customers.’ I said that we are certainly not looking to take elderly people who are on oxygen masks or disabilities and take their remaining social security payments.”
Butera said he never said anything disparaging about seniors.
Butera said he would then personally contact Muoio to explain his side of the story.
Globe Sticks By Column
In an e‑mail Friday morning, Vennochi, the Boston Globe writer, said Butera’s comments were not taken out of context.
“The meeting with Mr. Butera included the editor and deputy editor of the Globe editorial page and several editorial writers and columnists,” she said. “Trust me, his comments were not taken out of context. He said exactly what I quoted him as saying.”
So who do you believe?
The Derby senior center director sides with the Globe.
“I find it hard to believe that a reporter from a respected newspaper would quote someone so far out of context. I will contact the reporter directly,” Muoio said.
Vennochi is an associate editor with the Boston Globe and has been with the paper for 35 years. She shared a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for local investigative specialized reporting for stories on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, according to biographical information posted on Boston University’s web site.
