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Crosby: Gaming Commission's Bills Reflect Cost Of Doing Business

BOSTON (CBS) --- Massachusetts Gambling Commission is still deciding which companies will get the state's slot parlor and casino licenses.

But in the commission's first 20 months of existence, its workers have spent $85,000 on airfare.

A cool $61,000 was spent on hotels and $37,000 on meals.

Commissioner Steve Crosby says most of that money was justified but he did offer a mea culpa of sorts.

"We need to be more careful. We are in the public eye and appropriately so," he said.

The lavish spending is detailed in filings from the commission, as first reported by the Boston Business Journal.

"If I included the liquor on that, I shouldn't have, that's pretty straightforward," Crosby said.

But he defended dropping more than $400 on limos.

"The limousine was actually cheaper that taxicabs to get speakers from outside who landed at Logan who had to go out to Framingham and back," he said.

But in an interview last week, the former state inspector general said Crosby has crossed the line.

"I think that he is acting like an elite in government, that somehow he stands above the rest," Gregory Sullivan said.

But Crosby says the expenses reflect the cost of doing business.

"This is very much compatible with the norms of normal business life, there are very few things outside the norm of what you do when you travel and everybody does when they travel," Crosby said.

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