A measure that would allow New York state to move forward with a renewal of the Seneca Nation's gaming compact will not go forward in the state Assembly next week, Speaker Carl Heastie announced late Friday afternoon. 

The announcement from Heastie caps a week of turmoil surrounding the proposal as Rochester-area lawmakers and labor unions raised alarm over the potential of the compact leading to a casino in the Rochester area. 

Any casino near Rochester would be close to a commercially operated casino in the Finger Lakes region, where workers are unionized. There would have no guarantee a new Seneca-run casino in Rochester would be unionized by the politically powerful Hotel Trades Council. 

"I believe the Seneca Nation deserves a fair deal," Heastie wrote on Twitter. "However the sentiment of the Assembly’s Monroe County delegation — coupled with the potential loss of union jobs — is concerning, and we cannot move forward with a vote on the compact at this time."

The state Senate previously approved the legislation this month to authorize the state to move forward with changes and renewal to the compact. But moving forward with the compact became increasingly untenable for Rochester-area Democrats in the state Legislature, who had complained they were left in the dark about the details of the compact between negotiated by members of Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration. 

Hochul has publicly recused herself from the negotiations due to her husband, Bill Hochul, serving as an executive with Delaware North, a concessions company that has ties to competitors of the Seneca Nation's casinos.