Everett Police Chief Steven Mazzie has a couple of exciting and interesting matters on his plate: His son, Nick, has been named one of the top placekickers in the country – and yes, the nation’s most awe-inspiring casino/resort, the $2.6 billion Encore Boston Harbor – is set to open in the city on Sunday.
Mazzie and his department have been planning in the areas of public safety, traffic, and transportation (local routes to the resort) for the past few years. Since February, 2019, Mazzie has attended bi-weekly meetings with Encore Boston Harbor officials and local and state public safety agencies.
But Sunday all that work and professional collaboration will be put to the test with tens of thousands of visitors expected in Encore’s first week.
Encore Boston Harbor President Robert DeSalvio has stated at area informational meetings that the resort will have the most state-of-the-art and technologically advanced security systems in place of any such facility in the nation. There will be security cameras covering every angle of the massive resort property.
Mazzie’s department will work closely with a number of other agencies, including the Massachusetts State Police, the Boston Police, and the MBTA Transit Police.
Everett Police have been on the property every day during the construction phase and the pre-opening phase.
“On Sunday, there will be a much larger Everett police presence not only in and around the Encore Boston Harbor property, but there will be a contingent of our partners from Mass State Police, Boston Police, the Transit Police on the roadways coming in to the area from north and south and on any BTA properties,” said Mazzie.
“We’re going to be out in full force and that’s going to start even before Encore opens on Sunday,” he added.
In terms of the heavy vehicular traffic expected in Everett, the chief said Encore officials have done an excellent job “trying to reduce the number of people in vehicles on the roadways and make it as easy as possible to get to their destination.”
Mazzie understands that the Encore casino/resort is an unprecedented happening for Massachusetts. Encore is actually the largest single-phase development in the history of New England.
“There’s not a lot of places like this in densely populated areas, so they [Encore] have thought about that and I think they’ve put some really good thought in how to move people. They have a lot of shuttles from Malden Station, Wellington, Wonderland in Revere – the three shuttles from the Silver Line in Chelsea, the off-site parking at the RiverGreen, water taxis, and coach buses.”
As opening day arrives on Sunday, Mazzie said the Everett Police are ready – and they will assist in all phases of the public safety effort.
“We’re going to have a police presence 24/7 on the property,” said Mazzie. “We have a contingent of Everett officers assigned to the State Police Gaming Enforcement Unit. There’s a large team that will be there policing that facility and they’re going to be the first responders to any type of incident or call to service.
“We’ve been doing a lot of planning and working together trying to help make this opening go as smoothly as possible,” said Mazzie.
The chief indicated that the department formerly protected Everett as “a four-sector city” but with the arrival of Encore Boston Harbor, the department has added a fifth sector beginning at Sweetser Circle south to the Charlestown border. “There will be police officers from the operations division patrolling that area on a regular basis, handling the regular, day-to-day calls for service. Our traffic enforcement and community services units will also be on patrol there.”