By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Gov. Donald Carcieri made good on his threat to veto legislation allowing Twin River and Newport Grand to stay open all nights on weekends and holidays, but his action could be overridden in the House as early as this week.

In his veto message to House Speaker William Murphy, Carcieri said the prerogative to set business hours of operation should rest with the cities and towns.
Officials in Lincoln and Newport had vehemently opposed the expanded hours, though Lincoln officials suggested compromise measures — such as a one-year trial period, more revenue to the host communities and limiting the original plans for 24-hour/7 days a week opening to weekends and holidays. Lincoln residents overwhelmingly rejected the notion of expanded hours in a special non-binding referendum vote on a Saturday last November.
“Under the scheme passed by the General Assembly, the people of Lincoln and Newport are at the mercy of large-scale facilities, with no recourse,” says the veto message issued on Monday. “It is generally the prerogative of cities and towns to set the hours of operation for restaurants, bars, grocery and convenient stores and other businesses. 
“Twin River and Newport Grand are very large entities, attracting thousands of people on a daily basis,” Carcieri continued, “and while the state generates significant revenue from their operation, Lincoln and Newport are forced to bear the burdens of having such large facilities opened in their communities.
In a written statement Monday afternoon, Murphy and House Majority Leader Gordon Fox said they were “disappointed and confused” by the governor’s veto. 
Murphy and Fox said Carcieri’s argument that “host communities should approve of the extended hours is inconsistent with his past support of the largest expansion of gambling in state history without local approval.  The burden imposed by that expansion far exceeds any burden that overnight hours on weekends and holidays only might create.
“Contrary to the Governor’s comparison of these facilities to a local bar, grocery or convenience store, the state has a significantly greater interest in the operation of Twin River and Newport Grand.  While we appreciate the importance of local input, we don’t believe it can be the deciding factor when state interests are at stake.  We believe that such parochial thinking has hampered the state’s economic development opportunities in the past.” 
“Furthermore,” the House leaders said, “the General Assembly made a concerted effort to keep the concerns of the local communities in mind by including a one-year trial period to test the extended hours.  We also provided an increased local share to offset any additional costs that the host communities might incur.”
Rep. William San Bento, who authored the bill to which Carcieri fixed his veto, also voiced his disapproval of the governor’s actions.
“We’re losing $300,000 a week by not doing this,” San Bento told The Times. “That’s $1.2 million a month and he wants to keep playing this game. “We need the money. This is going to help us raise the money that we need. And yet he doesn’t want to do anything. He uses this excuse of his.
“We have a chance to pick up $14 or $15 million (annually) that we seriously need and this guy says we have to listen to the towns and cities? Lincoln is doing very well by this legislation. Their tax rate will probably be down $4 a thousand by now.
San Bento said he is “absolutely confident that we have the votes” to pass the law over the governor’s veto. He said he will ask the House leadership to schedule an override vote today or Wednesday, as he will be absent from House sessions for a week after that.
Murphy and Fox said that, “Given the state’s fiscal crisis and the fact that we must maximize the revenue from our existing facilities, we will strongly consider overriding the Governor’s veto in the coming days.”
Noting that Carcieri vetoed the House version of the bill and the House has not yet passed the Senate version, Senate President Joseph Montalbano said through spokesman Greg Pare that, “Should the House decide
to override the veto and transmit it to us, we will then consider whether to
schedule an override vote.
Carcieri was encouraged to veto the gambling bill by the watchdog group Operation Clean Government.
In a letter to the governor dated April 30, OCG President Arthur Barton said the group “has not taken a position on state-sponsored gambling.  But the OCG Board of Directors is concerned that the wishes of the people on this issue be respected and voted to take a stand for citizen participation by those most directly affected by this legislation.”
Barton pointed to the referendum vote in Lincoln last November and said, “the Lincoln Town Council then unanimously adopted a resolution opposing 24-hour gambling. Furthermore, Lincoln has an ordinance requiring that any expansion of gambling must be approved by the voters. He noted that at a House Finance Committee meeting in Newport in February, residents packed the hall to oppose the expanded hours.
Identical bills passed in both the House and Senate by margins large enough to override a veto – three fifths of the members present and voting in each chamber.