A representative from Foxwoods Resort and Casino paid a visit to the Derby Senior on Main Street Wednesday morning in an effort to make amends for remarks published in the Boston Globe attributed to Scott Butera, Foxwoods’ chief executive officer.
The casino employee wanted to see if there was a way Foxwoods and the Derby seniors could “move on” from the controversy.
It didn’t work.
Derby seniors cancelled an upcoming trip there are boycotting the casino after a Boston Globe columnist wrote that Butera “can do without stereotypical busloads of senior citizens who show up with walkers and oxygen tanks” at the casino.
Butera told the Valley Indy earlier this month his words were twisted and he was repeating a statement the writer had made — and disagreeing with her.
The Boston Globe associate editor who wrote the piece stands by it.
Click here to read the original Globe op-ed piece.
Derby Senior Center Director Sarah Muoio, who sent out a mass e‑mail calling for Butera’s termination, said Foxwoods marketing-sales manager Mike Orsene came to Derby Tuesday to talk things over.
Orsene and Muoio had a sit down in Muoio’s office off Main Street in Derby at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“He repeated Butera’s claims that everything was taken out of context. I said that I gave (Butera) the benefit of the doubt, but when I contacted the writer at the newspaper, she said that she was in a room with at least five other people when the comments were made,” Muoio said.
Orsene wondered if having Butera do a tour of senior centers all over Connecticut might help the public relations problem.
Muoio doubted that it would. Other senior centers in the state have contacted Foxwoods, angry at the comments attributed to Butera in the Globe, Muoio said.
The Derby senior director said Orsene was “a very nice guy.”
“He stressed that in his position he deals with the buses that come in from senior centers and that he had a great relationship with group leaders who bring in the seniors,” Muoio said.
But Muoio’s problem is with Butera. She asked Orsene whether she could speak with elders from the Mashantucket (Western) Pequot Tribal Nation about the controversy.
Foxwoods said they would get back to her, Muoio said.
Here’s a WTNH report on the controversy. After it aired, Derby seniors gave Muoio a round of applause when she returned to work.
“My face was red (with embarrassment) for days,” Muoio said.
