The Boston Globe - 27.08.2019

TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 The Boston Globe Nation/Region A

knocked back gambling reve-
nues across the Northeast, but
that doesn’t diminish the spe-
cific challenges that MGM faces
as it marked its first birthday
this past weekend.
“They have some very rug-
ged competition,” said the Rev.
Richard McGowan, a Boston
College professor who closely
follows the gambling industry.
“I think the MGM Springfield
people thought they were going
to dominate the whole area and
they haven’t dominated at all.
They’re going to have to learn
to compete a lot more, because
it’s not going to get any easier.”
City officials and casino ex-
ecutives say MGM’s first year
has been a success, drawing
nearly 6 million visitors, notch-
ing good numbers at the casi-
no’s hotel and restaurants, and
bringing thousands of jobs and
millions of dollars of revenue
for small businesses in the area.
MGM Springfield president
Michael Mathis said last week
that economic figures show
“the city is better off since we’ve
opened than the year before.”

uMGM
Continued from Page A

“And that’s because we bring

thousands more people than we

can feed every day and thou-

sands more people than we can

lodge every day. And where’s

that business going to? It’s go-

ing up and down the street.”

Springfield’s mayor, Domen-

ic J. Sarno, a leading casino pro-

ponent who is up for reelection

this year, said the project has

spurred a ripple effect.

“It means vibrancy for the

City of Springfield, that’s what

it means. And there’s been a tre-

mendous amount of spinoff ef-

fects and more to come. More

to come,” he said in a City Hall

interview last week.

Sarno emphasized the boost

that local businesses receive

from the big-name acts that

MGM is bringing into the city,

playing at the casino and the

MassMutual Center.

“Aerosmith! Four shows!

23,000 people downtown!” he

said. “I wanted the spinoff ef-

fect. Having all those people,

you talk to my bars and restau-

rants in the area, they say,

‘Dom, we love it.’ ”

A few blocks down Main

Street from the casino is Na-

dim’s Downtown, a 114-seat

restaurant that serves chicken

kabobs, hummus, and an array

of other Mediterranean cuisine.

Its founder, Nadim Kash-

ouh, said that business is “defi-

nitely up” since the casino

opened.

Sales have been “consistent-

ly double-digits” above the

same month last year, he said.

That boost in customers was

part of the plan. Whereas most

casinos are self-contained,

MGM Springfield was designed

toblendintothedowntownar-

ea, driving patrons to nearby

restaurants, shops, and other

businesses.

But although the company

projected more than $400 mil-

lion in first-year gambling reve-

nues, through 49 weeks it had

brought in just $253 million, a

massive shortfall.

On a recent earnings call,

the chief executive of the casi-

no’s parent company, MGM Re-

sorts International, acknowl-

edged that Springfield had not

lived up to expectations.

“If we are behind in some

place, like we’re behind in

Springfield, we’re ahead in

many other places,” James Mur-

ren told investors.

As a result, the casino has

shed hundreds of jobs since it

opened, although Mathis em-

phasized that MGM employees

are paid well and receive bene-

fits. “I like to focus on the 2,

jobs or so that we are provid-

ing,” he said.

Mathis noted that a Wahl-

burgers is poised to open soon

at the casino, and a CVS is com-

ing in across the street, two

signs of good things to come.

He said the CVS will provide

new amenities, making the area

more attractive to residents and

justifying new market-rate hous-

ing, a virtuous cycle “that we’ve

helped to kick-start,” he said.

Last Monday evening just af-

ter sunset, the gaming floor was

low energy. Several people

played blackjack quietly. An el-

derly woman on oxygen poked

at one slot machine’s buttons. A

man with a cane looked sadly at

another.

The casino’s other attrac-

tions seemed to be drawing

more people. Several diners

smiled as they exited MGM’s

TAP Sports Bar. Children hold-

ing hands with their parents

walked near the Regal movie

theater, which is part of the ca-

sino complex.

Patrons last week lauded the

transformation so far, speaking

highly of the restaurants, hotel,

movie theater, and general at-

mosphere without mentioning

the actual casino much.

Caren Joy, a 71-year-old

Agawam resident, comes regu-

larly to the casino with friends

to drink cocktails, watch a mov-

ie, eat dinner, and gamble.

“We call this our MGM Mon-

day night movie night,” Joy said

as she and her crew, all smiles

and laughs, meandered out of

the sports bar.

Joy said she and her friends

rarely came downtown before

the casino but now, at MGM,

they feel “very safe, very se-

cure.”

Ray Bouchard, 80, has come

to the casino about six times so

far. He makes the trek with his

wifefromtheirhomein

Colchester, Vt., because MGM is

one of the closest nonsmoking

casinos.

“The others, you come back

out of there and you smell like

an old chimney,” he said, gri-

macing at the thought.

Sue Lyons, 53, from Enfield,

Conn., was sitting outside one

of the casino’s entrances with

her parents, as she and her fa-

ther picked at a tub of popcorn.

Lyons used to go to Foxwoods

and Mohegan Sun, but this is

her spot now. It’s only 15 min-

utes from her house and meets

the most important metrics.

“It’s clean. I feel safe,” she

said, noting the presence of po-

lice, security officers, and K

units. That’s something that’s

important, “especially these

days.”

But safety is not perma-

nence. Although casino execu-

tives say they are looking for-

ward to many more anniversa-

ry celebrations, some patrons

have doubts.

“I’m interested to see — well

it’s a matter of longevity,” Joy

said.

What did she mean by that?

She answered with an existen-

tial question.

“Will it survive?”

Joshua Miller can be reached

[email protected].

if they did not leave the United
States in 33 days, they would be-
come undocumented and face
deportation proceedings.
Advocates, lawyers, doctors,
and lawmakers said the blanket
policy change was made with-
out any consideration of the po-
tentially disastrous health af-
fects it will have on children
and adults battling HIV, muscu-
lar dystrophy, epilepsy, leuke-
mia, and other diseases.
“Just when you think the ad-
ministration can’t sink any low-
er, it finds a new way to torture
our immigrant children and
families,” said Ronnie Millar,
executive director of the Irish
International Immigrant Cen-
ter, which has obtained “medi-
cal deferred action” for families
for 10 years and currently rep-
resents 19 families who expect
to have their applications for
that status rejected.
The program granted stays
of deportation in two-year in-
crements and didn’t promise
immigrants a future in the
United States, just access to
care in a time of need, said Dr.
SarahL.Kimball,whoworksin
the Immigrant and Refugee
Health Program at Boston Med-
ical Center.
Boston, with its constella-
tion of world-renowned hospi-
tals, has been a haven for many
such families, she and others
said. Some traveled here specif-
ically for life-saving treatments,
and others fell ill while visiting
the United States on visas.
An official from the Dana

uIMMIGRATION
Continued from Page A

Farber Cancer Institute also

spoke out against the new poli-

cy at a news conference Mon-

day at the Irish International

Immigrant Center in Boston.

“Patients who are protected

by medical deferred action are

doing it out of desperation,”

Kimball said. “It’s a tenuous le-

gal status. It’s one that’s hard to

get and, in my experience, not

easily given.”

Shonell Norville, a 37-year-

old from Guyana, said she and

her 7-year-old son, Joaquim,

are facing deportation when

their medical deferred action

expires in March.

They came on a tourist visa

in August 2016 to visit

Joaquim’s grandparents, who

are US citizens, and were visit-

ing Franklin Park Zoo when

Joaqium fell ill and was diag-

nosed with epilepsy, Shonell

Norville said. Since then,

Joaquim has had major prob-

lems. His lungs collapsed when

he had a seizure, requiring doc-

tors to perform a tracheotomy.

He also developed an infection

in his colon, requiring the re-

moval of his large intestine and

the use of a colostomy bag.

Joaquim currently receives

regular care at Boston Medical

Center and Boston Children’s

Hospital to control his seizures,

and Shonell Norville said she

fears for his life if he is sent

back to Guyana, one of South

America’s poorest countries.

“I tell people, I feel like I’m

signing my son’s death war-

rant,” she said, adding that she

fought to stay in Boston “to save

him — now, just to be pushed

out. How do you comprehend

that?”

Mariela Sanchez, a Hondu-

ran who lives in Dorchester,

said she fears for her son, Jona-

than, who is 16 and was born

with cystic fibrosis. They came

to Boston in 2016 so he could

be treated at Boston Children’s

Hospital after Jonathan’s older

sister died of cystic fibrosis in

Honduras, she said. Since then,

Jonathan has received regular

physical therapy and intrave-

nous antibiotics at Children’s.

“He would die without a

doctor, without help, without

medicine,” Mariela Sanchez

said. “Our country is not in any

condition to help him.’’

The action is the latest in a

series of moves by the Trump

administration targeting immi-

grants, including tougher de-

tention policies at the border

and the removal of legal protec-

tions for hundreds of thou-

sands of undocumented immi-

grants brought to the country

as young children.

Last week, Citizenship and

Immigration Services said it

would no longer schedule new

asylum interviews in Boston, as

part of an effort to shift resourc-

es to the southern border. Crit-

ics said the move would in-

crease the already daunting

wait times for asylum-seekers.

In a statement Monday, Citi-

zenship and Immigration Ser-

vices confirmed its latest move

against seriously ill immi-

grants. The agency said its field

offices “will no longer consider

non-military requests for de-

ferred action, to instead focus

agency resources on faithfully

administering our nation’s law-

ful immigration system.”

The statement insisted the

“changes to our internal guid-

ance do not mean the end of de-

ferred action.” Instead, Citizen-

ship and Immigration Services

said it will refer decisions about

such cases to Immigration and

Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Immigration lawyers dis-

missed the notion that ICE

would now be considering such

cases, noting the rejection let-

ters their clients have received

made no mention of that possi-

bility and merely told them to

leave the country in 33 days.

“There’s no procedure for

that,” said Anthony Marino, di-

rector of Immigration Legal

Services at the Irish Immigrant

Center. “I think what’s happen-

ing is they’re playing games. I

think the deferred action pro-

gram has ended.”

Mahsa Khanbabai, chair of

the New England chapter of the

American Immigration Law-

yers Association, said her orga-

nization confirmed with Citi-

zenship and Immigration Ser-

vices that renewals under the

program ended Aug. 7.

She said the change means

officials can no longer make hu-

manitarian decisions and focus

their limited resources on de-

porting dangerous people, not

the most vulnerable.

Democratic US Senator Ed-

ward J. Markey vowed to try to

save the program, but said he

saw little hope in the Republi-

can-controlled Senate.“We have

now reached the bottom — the

most inhumane of all of Donald

Trump’s policies,” Markey said.

Michael Levenson

can be reached at

[email protected].

summer of the first order — it
has also been the summer of
the Great Chicken Sandwich
Rush of 2019, and that, some-
how, has been a mercy.
This is the distraction Amer-
ica needed. This is the distrac-
tion America deserved.
It began, most accounts will
tell you, when Popeyes tweeted
out a beauty shot of the chicken
sandwich with this message:
“Chicken. Brioche. Pickles.
New. Sandwich. Popeyes. Na-
tionwide. So. Good. Forgot.
How. Speak. In. Complete.
Sandwiches. I mean, sentenc-
es.”
In response, rival chicken
chain Chick-fil-A petulantly
tweeted: “Bun + Chicken +
Pickles = all the [heart emoji]
for the original.”
To which Popeyes replied
slyly:“...y’allgood?”
Competitors such as Shake
Shack and Wendy’s soon en-
tered the fray. It got people’s at-
tention. They tried the sand-
wich, and they couldn’t stop
talking about it. Or else they
couldn’t stop talking about the

uPOPEYE'S
Continued from Page A

sandwich, and so they tried it.

They made memes. They

formed lines around the block.

They bought up all the chicken

sandwiches. Customers using

services like DoorDash and

Uber Eats reported that deliv-

ery people were unrepentantly

eating their orders. There are

now dozens of Popeyes chicken

sandwiches for auction on eBay.

There’s one that on Monday

had 75 bids. The highest is

$4,316. The sandwich retails

for $3.99.

It’s worth at least that. The

Popeyes chicken sandwich is in-

deed very, very good.

The first time I tried to get

one, there was a sign on the

door: “SORRY BUT WE DON’T

HAVE CHICKEN SANDWICH

UNTIL TOMORROW I APOLO-

GIZED !!!!!” The all caps, the ex-

clamation points, the dis-

traught mixed-tense mood — it

was clear the owners of the

shop understood what deep dis-

appointment feels like.

My next try, I encountered

another, more-professional

sign. It looked like a PDF sent

around by corporate, but the

message was the same. The

sandwich was sold out for the

day.

It was on my third attempt

that I found the fast-food holy

grail. At a Popeyes across the

street from a deserted Crown

Fried Chicken, after waiting in

a very long line, I purchased

two chicken sandwich-

es: one regular,

one spicy. I sat

at a table and

a beam of

sunlight

illumi-

nated my

tray. I un-

wrapped

the classic

version: A

shiny bun,

squishy on

top and toasted

where the surface

met a judicious slick of

mayonnaise. A few pickle slices,

crisp and tart. And then the

white-meat chicken encased in

craggy golden batter, perfectly

salty, perfectly fried. That tex-

ture! That crunch! The spicy

version was even better.

What is it about chicken

sandwiches that gets us so

worked up? In some ways, they

are a blank canvas, a basic item

we all understand, like sneak-

ers — a category that encom-

passes both plain-vanilla Keds

and highly hyped Nike collabo-

rations. It’s in the details that

we reveal ourselves.

The Chick-fil-A

sandwich is made

from the same

basic tem-

plate as

Popeyes’.

But it’s

dialed

down a

notch. It

doesn’t

have the

same savor.

It’s a little

Ned Flanders.

It is also flavored

by the substantial dona-

tions that the company makes

to anti-LGBTQ organizations.

Don’t think you can’t taste that

in the mix.

“Chick-fil-A’s sandwich

tastes like it was cooked by a

white woman named Sarah

who grew up around black peo-

ple,” wrote a Facebook user

named Nadiyah Ali, breaking

down the difference between

the two in a comment that went

viral. “The flavor is definitely

there, but Sarah cares about

your cholesterol so she’s careful

about the breading and grease

content.

“Popeyes’ sandwich tastes

like it was cooked by an older

black lady named Lucille that

serves on the usher board and

has 12 grandkids that call her

‘Madea.’ Madea don’t give a

[hoot] about your cholesterol

because God’s in control.”

I’m thinking about every

miserable bowl of matzo ball

soup I’ve ever eaten in a restau-

rant and laughing in commiser-

ation.

This episode in fast-food his-

tory has largely been portrayed

as the chicken sandwich wars,

in which savvy companies vying

for eyeballs had a spat on social

media, garnering the equiva-

lent of about $23 million in ad-

vertising for Popeyes, according

to a report from Michigan-

based Apex Marketing Group.

But it’s also a story about the

power of Black Twitter. African-

American Twitter users picked

up the Popeyes news and ran

with it — celebrating the sand-

wich, making jokes about the

sandwich, retweeting one an-

other’s jokes about the sand-

wich, in such volume that those

outside of the community

heard it, and listened. A simple

sandwich is never just a simple

sandwich. It’s a mirror of cul-

ture. This one reflects how ours

is shaped and disseminated,

and who gets elided in the nar-

rative about taste-making and

influence.

There are so few communal

experiences we have left. We ar-

en’t a religious nation the way

we once were. We aren’t all

watching “Dallas” together on

CBS. But something as prosaic

as a chicken sandwich can still

bring us together — in our

quest for something that satis-

fies, in our common desires. We

are all hungry. We all face a

hard road ahead. I found my

chicken sandwich at the Rox-

bury Popeyes. I’ll save you a

place in line.

Devra First can be reached at

[email protected]. Follow

her on Twitter @devrafirst.

Springfield casino slowed by crowded gambling market

New policy means

severely ill are now

facing deportation

Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich is the distraction that America deserves

NIC ANTAYA FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Mariela Sanchez of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with son Jonathan, 16, who has cystic fibrosis, and her husband, Gary Sanchez.